UC-NRLIF 


*B    E7q    145 


Apt  and  Meet 


Counsels  to  Candidates 
For  Holy  Orders 

At  the 

Church  Divinity  School 

of  the  Pacific 


By 

WILLIAM  F.  NICHOLS 

Dean 


**  Take  heed  that  the  persons^  whom  ye 
present  unto  us^  he  apt  and  meet " 


^ 


THOMAS  WHITTAKER,  Inc. 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1909 
By  THOMAS  WHITTAKER,  Inc. 


BELCHEfi 


To 

her  dearest 

by  my  side 

ever  my  Ideal  Help^ 

Meet  for  the  Ministry 


182278 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/aptmeetcounselstOOnichrich 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

IT  was  the  voice  of  a  true  Seer  that  said  when 
asked.  What  is  the  greatest  danger  of  the  cen- 
tury ?  "I  have  no  doubt  what  is  the  greatest 
danger — it  is  the  absence  of  high  aspirations." 
This  was  an  estimate  made  in  the  first  week  of  the 
first  year  of  the  twentieth  century  by  one  who 
singularly  combined  in  himself  the  powers  of  the 
historian  and  the  statesman,  with  the  experience  of 
a  man  of  affairs  over  the  Diocese  which  probably 
best  of  all  samples  the  stir  of  the  modern  world, 
the  Diocese  of  London.  It  was  too  his  death-bed 
conviction,  uttered,  as  it  proved,  at  the  end  of  his 
signal  episcopate.  The  judgment  is  especially  valu- 
able because  he  knew  so  well  the  comparison  with 
other  centuries,  like  the  thirteenth  which  he  cited, 
and  had  so  full  and  exact  insight  into  the  condi- 
tions of  the  century  which  was  dawning.  Bishop 
Creighton's  own  principle  for  meeting  such  con- 
ditions is  well  proven  in  his  life,  in  what  he  called 
"  Goethe's  doctrine  of  Entsagung ?'^  For  our  pres- 
ent use  his  own  working  formula  is  happily  and 
pointedly  expressed  in  one  of  his  letters.  He  writes : 
"  To  Goethe  I  apprehend  Entsagung  meant  to  do 


VI  PREFATORY   NOTE 

honestly  what  was  immediately  before  him,  and 
then  see  if  he  was  strengthened  to  do  anything 
more."  This  outlook  and  this  inlook  of  such  a  man 
are  both  of  inestimable  value  at  the  threshold  of 
the  Ministry.  They  give  a  golden  "  precept  of  the 
Elders."  They  reflect  the  very  Vision  and  Service 
in  the  Ordinal  as  they  divine  the  signs  of  the  times. 
From  time  to  time  these  Divinity  School  Counsels 
have  been  given  to  help  those  looking  to  Holy 
Orders  in  justifying  the  confidence  expressed  in  the 
Ordinal :  "  We  have  good  hope  that  you  have 
well  weighed  these  matters  with  yourselves,  long 
before  this  time."  And  the  aim  and  prayer  have 
been  to  turn  the  heart  searchings  upon  that  priestly 
character  which  must  be  so  well-weighed  long  be- 
fore, in  seminary  days,  to  a  discernment  of  the 
state  of  the  actual  world  to  be  served  and  of  the 
higher  aspirations  with  which  alone  the  Minister 
of  Jesus  Christ  can  serve  it. 

Thirty-five  years  in  the  Ministry,  more  than  half 
of  which  have  laid  upon  the  writer  the  responsibil- 
ity, as  bishop,  of  meeting  pressing  questions  of 
ministerial  supply  on  this  "  other  Coast,"  and  al- 
most half  of  which  have  constantly  brought  close 
contacts  with  those  feeling  the  vocation  to  Holy 
Orders, — through  chairs  held  in  two  Divinity 
Schools — such  years  have  seemed  in  the  simple  line 
of  duty  to  dictate  these  Counsels,  however  inade- 
quate and  however  many  the  points  not  touched 
upon.  The  hope  in  them  has  been  to  point — even 
though  afar  off — to  such  aspirations  as  that  which 


PREFATORY   NOTE  Vll 

Archbishop  Benson  made  his  own  in  Wordsworth's 
lines : 

"^Thy  soul  was  as  a  star  and  dwelt  apart 

and  yet  thy  soul 

The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay,'' 


William  F.  Nichols. 


The  Bishop's  Houses 

San  Francisco, 

Epiphany f  1909. 


CONTENTS 


I.  Apt  and  Meet   .... 

II.  Learning 

III.  Godly  Conversation  . 

IV.  Due  Exercise  of  the  Ministry  . 
V.  To  THE  Honor  of  God 

VI.  The  Edifying  of  His  Church    . 

VII.  The  Man  of  God 

VIII.  The  Stewardship  of  Time — Time  for 
Devotion         .... 


IX.  The    Stewardship   of  Time — Right 
USE  OF  Retirement 

X.  Good  Bodily  Trim 

XL  Dark  Speech  Upon  the  Harp    . 

XIL  Camaraderie       .... 

XIII.  Vocation  and  Vacation     . 

XIV.  Books  and  Bookishness 
XV.  Money  Matters 

XVI.  Tact 

XVII.  "  Getting  Out  Among  the  People  ' 

XVIIL  "The  Cloth"     .... 

XIX.  Prayer  for  Vocation 

XX.  Matriculation  Address    . 
ix 


OF  THE 


APT  AND  MEET 

"Take  heed" — so  the  searching  challenge 
warns  both  Presenter  and  Candidate  at  the  thres- 
hold of  Ordination.  Note  that  the  test  thought 
then  is  not  what  the  Candidate  has  done,  but  what 
he  is.  "  Take  heed  that  the  persons,  whom  ye  present 
unto  us,  be  apt  and  meet."  There  has  been  the 
canonical  course  of  preparation  but  has  it  really 
fitted  him?  All  his  certificates  of  recommenda- 
tion and  his  examinations  have  been  duly  met, 
but  after  all  is  he  meet?  Is  his  heart  right? 
Has  he  the  "  root  of  the  matter "  in  him  ?  Does 
he  stand  there  so  "truly  called  according  to  the 
will  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ"  that  the  convic- 
tion has  been  transmuted  into  a  calm  expectancy 
of  the  holy  gift  of  Orders  ?  Is  he  capax — to 
use  the  old  word — is  he  capable  of  the  Venij 
Creator : 

"Come,  Holy  Ghost,  our  souls  inspire, 
And  lighten  with  celestial  fire.'' 

The  challenge  then  is  the  really  critical  exami- 
nation question  of  all.     In  their  ultimate  bearing 

1 


2  APT   AND   MEET 

all  other  examination  papers  in  the  preparation 
for  the  ministry  lead  up  to  that.  The  whole 
curriculum  of  the  prescribed  studies  and  the 
whole  manner  of  life  must  be  brought  to  that 
final  scrutiny.  Indeed  all  that  has  made  up  the 
personality  in  the  past  must  have  something  to 
do  with  it.  To  that  applies  especially  that 
suggestive  phrase  in  the  Ordination  Charge,  "  We 
have  good  hope  that  ye  have  well  weighed 
these  things  with  yourselves  long  before  this 
time."  One  looking  forward  to  the  Ministry 
then  cannot  begin  too  soon  an  habitual  and  well 
devised  rule  of  self-investigation  of  his  progress 
towards  the  sort  of  manhood  he  would  wish  to 
present  and  ask  his  Presenter  to  present,  when 
confronted  by  that  vital  challenge.  There  is  a 
sense  in  which  the  most  constant  text-book  for  a 
Postulant  or  Candidate  for  Holy  Orders  must  be 
the  book  of  his  own  Character. 

Character  will  also  be  a  blessed  book  of  de- 
votion if  he  is  tracing  in  it  the  witnessing  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  with  his  spirit  that  he  is  a  child  of 
God.  If  struggles,  faults,  temptations,  doubts, 
blindness  as  well  as  love,  joy,  peace,  vision  are 
betokening  here  and  there  the  motion  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  over  those  inner  deeps  of  personality, 
some  of  his  most  precious  hours  of  self-commun- 


APT  AND   MEET  3 

ing  will  be  spent  in  such  stillness.  But  there  must 
go  with  it  the  application  to  character  as  a  text- 
book never  to  be  laid  aside,  of  the  study  of  what 
we  are  and  are  becoming  under  the  spur  of  that 
quick  and  powerful  question  which  is  as  it  were 
to  lay  our  life  bare  before  God — Is  he  apt  and 
meet?  In  this  the  Candidate  must  be  his  own 
constant  examiner.  He  must  be  fair  and  thorough 
with  himself.  That  coming  challenge  must  take 
hold  of  him  and  his  anxieties  and  his  determina- 
tion as  an  examination  upon  which  the  deepest 
concerns  of  his  ministry  are  at  stake.  And  to 
be  ready  for  it,  all  along  in  the  preparatory 
years  it  must  be  in  his  mind  and  in  his  prayers 
and  in  his  plans  and  work.  Mountain  altitudes 
apart  are  those  who  are  girding  themselves  for 
the  goal  of  Ordination  with  such  a  stalwart 
spirit,  and  those  who  languidly  take  the  prelimi- 
nary steps  as  if  to  stroll  through  lectures  and 
question  papers  and  certificates  of  conduct  were 
an  agreeable  way  to  spend  a  few  years  and 
then  by  a  sort  of  canonical  destiny  to  become  a 
clergyman. 

No  strange  thing  will  happen  to  us  if  as  we 
ponder  upon  this  high  standard  we  find  ourselves 
faltering  over  the  misgiving,  Can  I  ever  hope  to 
be  "apt  and  meet"?     Knowing  my  failings  and 


4  APT  AND   MEET 

limitations,  can  I  attain  unto  anything  like  an 
assuring  qualification  ?  St.  Paul  reflects  this  state 
of  mind  when  he  exclaims,  "  Who  is  sufficient  for 
these  things  ? "  and  when  he  affirms,  "  I  am  not 
meet  to  be  called  an  apostle."  To  an  honest  heart 
the  very  misgiving  has  in  it  the  wholesome  instinct 
to  lean  all  the  more  upon  the  grace  of  God. 
St.  Paul's  poise  of  character  was  found  by  supple- 
menting his  own  short  weight  with  the  Lord's 
promise,  "  My  grace  is  sufficient  for  thee ;  for  My 
strength  is  made  perfect  in  weakness."  St.  Paul's 
heart  to  go  on  was  ever  sustained  by  the  proof 
within  him  that  he  trusted  with  his  whole  being 
"  by  the  grace  of  God  I  am  what  I  am."  That 
must  have  carried  him  through  many  a  siege  of  self- 
distrust.  And  it  is  one  of  the  most  precious  ex- 
periences of  a  sense  of  vocation  to  the  ministry  that 
the  very  leading  towards  it  is  God's  leading.  "  I 
have  chosen  you  "  seems  to  be  writing  itself  out  as 
a  forecast  of  the  career.  There  is  an  unmistakable 
inward  motion.  It  is  the  gentle  suasion  of  God's 
Holy  Spirit.  We  can  confidently  trust  that  we  are 
inwardly  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  take  upon 
us  this  Office  and  Ministration.  Liddon  traces  with 
careful  insight  this  evolution  of  the  high  call  in  one 
whom  Christ  chooses.     He  says,^  "  He  has  been  the 

» Liddon,  "  Clerical  Life  and  Work/ »  pp.  210,  211. 


APT  AND  MEET  6 

object  of  a  choice  rather  than  its  author,  .  .  . 
He  has  yielded  to  a  mysterious  attraction  which  has 
drawn  him  on.  He  has  been  guided,  it  may  be, 
partly  by  the  force  of  family  circumstances,  partly 
by  natural  tastes  and  sympathies,  partly  by  the  direct 
results  of  education,  partly  by  minds  with  which 
he  has  come  in  contact.  He  has  followed  too  the 
guidance  of  an  inward  light  growing  stronger  in 
his  soul  as  the  years  have  passed  on,  a  light  which 
has  discovered  him  in  all  his  native  misery  to  him- 
self face  to  face  with  the  Eternal  Love  which  has 
redeemed  him  and  which  now  bids  him  own  and 
glorify  it.  And  thus  what  was  at  first  a  vague 
hope  became  more  and  more  a  purpose,  and 
what  had  been  for  years  only  a  general,  undefined 
purpose,  ripened  at  length  in  the  strength  of  prayer 
into  a  formal  resolution  solemnly  taken  beneath  the 
eye  of  the  Kedeemer.  .  .  .  When  he  is  asked. 
Dost  thou  believe  that  thou  art  called  by  the  will  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  ...  it  is  the  verdict  of 
his  whole  moral  being  that  he  can  answer  confi- 
dently, yet  humbly,  ^  I  trust  so.' " 

Now  this  singling  one  out,  so  to  speak,  by  our 
Lord,  implies  some  principle  of  selection  beyond  our 
ken,  by  which  He  sees  in  us  that  we  are  "  apt  and 
meet "  for  His  use.  That  must  lie  at  the  starting- 
point  of  the  experience.    The  first  stirring  is  from 


6  APT   AND   MEET 

Him,  not  from  us.  "  We  are  not  only  the  sheep  of 
His  pasture  but  the  sheep  also  of  His  hands,"  says 
Bishop  Andrewes.  And  His  initiative,  we  may  for 
our  comfort  believe,  would  not  have  been  taken  and 
He  would  not  have  put  the  persistent  thought  in 
our  minds  if  He  had  not  detected  in  us  primarily 
something  to  justify  it.  When  the  Master  called 
the  Apostles  He  read  them  far  better  than  they 
could  read  themselves.  He  knew  the  strong  and 
weak  points  of  each  as  He  knew  the  sphere  they 
were  to  fill.  And  the  fact  that  they  were  His 
choice  was  enough  to  enable  them  to  follow  Him. 
So  every  humble  servant  of  Christ  in  whom  He 
makes  His  leading  towards  the  Ministry  felt  may 
well  lean  much  upon  the  fact  that  such  a  leading  in 
itself  indicates  that  Christ  discovers  in  him,  even 
though  he  himself  may  not,  marks  of  his  being  apt 
and  meet.  Vocation  presupposes  something  of 
revelation  of  Christ's  will  for  our  life  based  upon 
His  unerring  knowledge  of  our  life.  When  the 
question  of  studying  for  the  Ministry  has  seriously 
taken  possession  of  a  man,  it  is  pretty  safe  to  pre- 
sume that  it  has  done  so  because  the  man  has  some 
points  especially  favorable  for  it.  God  has  already 
seen  in  him  possibilities  of  the  making  of  a  useful 
clergyman.  The  very  name  Clergyman  implies 
choice  {fiXftpoi)^  and  God  has  put  it  into  his  heart  to 


APT   AND   MEET  7 

be  a  Clergyman  because  He  has  chosen  him  and  He 
has  chosen  him  because  he  possesses  qualities  to  fit 
him  for  it. 

Of  course  a  passing  sentiment  does  not  in  itself 
constitute  a  settled  sense  of  vocation,  nor  is  the 
danger  of  neglecting  the  gift  when  an  undoubted 
call  is  trying  to  declare  itself,  one  to  be  ignored. 
But  the  true  following  of  the  Divine  leading  sooner 
or  later  will,  if  heeded  with  ordinary  interest  and 
care,  assert  itself.  And  when  it  has  asserted  itself 
there  is  an  unspeakable  encouragement  that  comes 
with  it  in  this  dawning  upon  us  that  whatever  be 
our  hesitation  over  our  capacity,  oi*  wonder  how  we 
can  ever  grow  up  to  the  demands  of  the  future 
work,  the  Holy  Spirit  has  been  the  Judge — not  we 
— whether  we  can  become  apt  and  meet.  Many  a 
time  a  man  may  need  just  that  consideration  to 
make  him  go  on  in  faith.  But  when  full  place  is 
given  to  that  sense  of  our  sending,  it  still  remains 
for  us  to  apply  ourselves  wholly  to  this  one  thing 
and  draw  all  our  cares  and  studies  this  way.  It  is 
our  part  to  see  that  we  devote  ourselves,  soul,  body 
and  spirit,  with  all  their  powers  and  faculties,  to 
preparation  for  God's  service.  So  may  we  in  all 
humility  carry  up  to  the  ordination  hour  the  well 
considered  credentials  of  others,  after  due  enquiry 
and  examination,  that  we  are  apt  and  meet.     This 


8  APT   AND   MEET 

I  believe  to  be  your  honest  and  constant  purpose 
here.  And  at  these  early  communion  hours  I  pro- 
pose, as  I  have  opportunity,  to  suggest  various  fields 
and  phases  of  that  preparation.  Following  this  in- 
troductory suggestion  of  what  is  the  meaning  of  I. 
"  Apt  and  Meet,"  we  shall  try  to  dwell  somewhat 
upon  our  Ordination  vision  of  what  it  is  to  be  Apt 
and  Meet : — 

II.     In  Learning. 

III.  In  Godly  Conversation. 

IV.  For  Due  Exercise  of  the  Ministry. 
V.     To  the  Honor  of  God. 

VI.     To  the  Edifying  of  His  Church. 

Almighty  God,  who  hath  given  you  this  will 
to  do  all  these  things :  Grant  also  unto  you 
strength  and  power  to  perform  the  same,  that  He 
may  accomplish  His  work  which  He  hath  begun 
in  you :  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.    Amen. 


II 

LEAENING 

Candidates  for  Ordination  must  be  "  apt  and 
meet  for  their  learning."  If  not  so,  it  is  not  the 
fault  of  the  Prayer  Book  or  the  Canons.  In  the 
Ordination  Offices  and  elsewhere  in  the  Prayer 
Book  the  only  ideal  that  fits  into  the  phraseology 
is  that  of  a  well-learned  clergy.  And  we  are  left  in 
no  manner  of  doubt  as  to  the  kind  of  learning  es- 
sential. "Seeing  that  ye  cannot  by  any  other 
means  compass  the  doing  of  so  weighty  a  work,  per- 
taining to  the  salvation  of  man,  but  with  doctrine 
and  exhortation  taken  out  of  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  with  a  life  agreeable  to  the  same ;  consider  how 
studious  ye  ought  to  be  in  reading  and  learning  the 
Scriptures,  and  in  framing  the  manners  both  of 
yourselves,  and  of  them  that  specially  pertain  unto 
you,  according  to  the  rule  of  the  same  Scriptures ; 
and  for  this  self -same  cause,  how  ye  ought  to  for- 
sake and  set  aside,  as  much  as  ye  may,  all  worldly 
cares  and  studies."  Nothing  could  be  plainer  than 
that  the  vital  point  is  for  the  candidate  and  clergy- 
man to  know  and  live  his  Bible.     That  must  have 

9 


10  APT   AND   MEET 

the  chief  claim  upon  his  study  and  his  literary  ac- 
complishment. No  mere  incidental  study  of  it  will 
do.  The  Word  of  God  must  be  his  first  and  fore- 
most because  it  is  the  handbook  for  Christ.  "  Ye 
search  the  Scriptures  because  ye  think  that  in  them 
ye  have  eternal  life ;  and  these  are  they  which  bear 
witness  of  Me."  Every  priest  must  solemnly  vow 
to  be  diligent  in  reading  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and 
in  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowledge  of  the  same 
laying  aside  the  study  of  the  world  and  the  flesh. 
Could  anything  stand  out  more  searchingly  as  a 
corrective  of  Bible-shelving  than  that?  In  the 
wide  and  inviting  field  of  letters,  men  may  purchase 
to  themselves  many  good  degrees,  but  the  one  de- 
gree that  every  true  minister  of  Jesus  Christ  must 
have  is  the  diploma  of  familiarity  with  the  Holy 
Scriptures.  No  brilliant  parts  and  no  encyclopaedic 
knowledge  can  take  the  place  of  that.  Whatever 
else  he  may  be  an  authority  upon,  he  must  be  even 
more  of  an  authority  upon  the  main  book  of  his 
ministry.  He  may  dip  into  a  thousand  passing 
topics  and  absorb  and  create  volumes  here  and  there 
as  he  finds  himself  interested  in  some  special  line  of 
research,  but  it  is  only  "  by  daily  reading  and  weigh- 
ing the  Scriptures  "  that  he  can  "  wax  riper  and 
stronger "  in  his  ministry.  The  Bible  must  be  his 
meat,  not  bis  confectionery.     Lamentable  as  may 


LEARNING  11 

be  the  effect  of  unwholesome  reading  upon  the  mind 
of  people  at  large  to  whom  the  Bible-reading  habit 
is  strange  or  wanting,  even  that  is  not  so  deplorable 
as  the  starvation  of  spirit  of  the  minister  of  Christ 
who  lays  aside  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  for  any 
studies  of  the  world  or  the  flesh.  A  great  preacher 
once  pointed  out  that  curious  trait  of  humanity  by 
which  men  are  wont  to  hanker  after,  so  to  speak, 
an  amateur  record  in  something  aside  from  their 
main  pursuit  in  life.  The  good  business  man  is 
sometimes  not  satisfied  until  he  can  manipulate  the 
market  as  a  sensational  plunger  in  speculation. 
The  cobbler,  to  use  the  old  Latin  illustration,  does 
not  stick  to  his  last.  The  hapless  making  of  a 
merely  amateur  Clergyman  may  spoil  a  good  lay- 
man. And  so  the  age  which  crowds  into  the  min- 
istry so  many  varied  activities  is  one,  which  if  he  is 
not  very  careful,  surrounds  the  priest  with  subtile 
and  strong  temptation  to  try  to  excel  in  many 
another  accomplishment  to  the  sacrifice  of  just 
that  plain  knowing  and  preaching  his  Bible.  Per- 
haps this  may  have  gone  so  far  that  some  will  be 
disposed  to  challenge  the  position  of  the  Prayer 
Book  in  putting  the  principal  stress  upon  that  kind 
of  learning.  But  that  will  only  show  what  a  de- 
parture there  has  been  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
Ordinal,  as  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  what  that 


12  APT   AND   MEET 

standpoint  is  in  the  quotations  already  given.  To 
be  apt  and  meet  in  learning  is  primarily  to  be  apt 
and  meet  in  the  many-sided  and  modern  learning  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  unless  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
Ordination  Oflfices  is  a  great  mistake.  To  have 
other  studies  interfere  with  that,  far  more  to  have 
other  studies  supersede  that,  to  fall  into  the  habit 
of  general  reading  which  reduces  the  Bible  reading 
to  a  mere  looking  over  snatches  of  it  now  and  then, 
all  this  is  at  the  peril  of  high  vision  for  the  man  and 
the  flock.  To  treat  the  Bible  as  if  it  were  a  Dic- 
tionary of  Quotations  for  texts,  and  that  sometimes 
with  sermons  that  as  Dr.  South  caustically  observed 
were  truly  drawn  from  the  text  from  which  they 
would  never  have  come  by  spontaneous  flow,  is  not 
altogether  an  unheard  of  illustration  of  the  way  in 
which  the  consciousness  of  the  vital  need  of  Bible 
study  may  gradually  fade  out  of  the  life.  And  as 
one  reads  over  the  Ordination  oflSces  from  year  to 
year  on  anniversaries  of  ordination  days.  Ember 
Seasons,  or  at  other  times  of  meditation  upon  their 
standards,  I  believe  there  are  few  that  do  not  find 
here  a  sense  of  shortcoming  to  cause  honest  heart 
searching  and  renewed  effort.  Cultivate  then  in 
these  formative  years  a  conscience  upon  this  which 
may  have  so  much  to  do  with  making  or  marring 
your  influence  in  the  ministry.     Saturate  your  mind 


LEARNING  13 

with  the  Scriptures.  Kead  them  constantly  as  a 
devotional  habit,  over  and  above  any  studies  of  them 
in  your  preparatory  work.  Search  them  to  find 
Christ  for  your  own  character.  Make  them  your 
chief  concern  in  fitting  yourself  to  carry  Christ's 
message  from  them  to  others.  Aim  at  a  Gospel  for 
your  own  heart  which  will  be  a  Gospel  of  which 
there  will  be  a  veritable  woe  unto  you  if  you  preach 
it  not  to  others.  That  is  to  be  "  wise  unto  salva- 
tion through  faith  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus,"  in  that 
Scripture  which  "  is  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  re- 
proof, for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righteous- 
ness, that  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect,  thor- 
oughly furnished  unto  all  good  works." 

But  we  remember  that  while  we  accord  this  high 
place  of  prominence  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  this 
learning  in  which  we  are  to  hope  to  be  apt  and  meet 
includes  also  "  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  same  "  and  covers  an  almost  boundless  field 
of  study.  Indeed  one  branch  of  such  study.  The- 
ology, used  to  be  called  the  "  Queen  of  Sciences." 
If  it  were  supposable  that  a  Candidate  could  only 
know  two  books^  his  Bible  and  his  Prayer  Book 
would  be  his  wisest  choice.  But  he  is  expected  to 
know  far  more  than  two  books  and  the  whole 
course  of  preparation  as  outlined  for  our  Divinity 
Schools  in  the  canons  is  intended  to  round  out,  and 


14  APT   AND   MEET 

afford  scope  to  his  learning.  A  College  or  Uni- 
versity degree  is,  when  practicable,  presupposed. 
That  marks  the  stage  of  progress  requisite  for  Can- 
didateship.  Many  well-furnished  men  in  the  minis- 
try have  passed  the  equivalent  of  that  as  pro- 
vided in  the  canon,  bringing  to  their  Candidateship 
an  alternate  training  found  in  the  university  of 
practical  experience  out  in  the  world.  And  too 
much  emphasis  can  hardly  be  laid  upon  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  broad  culture  of  university  life  and 
atmosphere  to  one  in  the  Holy  Ministry.  Every 
possible  opportunity  should  be  given  for  it.  Every 
provision  should  be  made  for  it  in  shaping  a  twenti- 
eth century  Clergy.  Short  circuiting  the  current 
of  learning  is  apt  to  play  havoc  with  the  transfor- 
mation process.  The  fullest  measure  of  scholarly 
work  should  be  the  ambition  and  the  goal.  This  is 
not  to  overlook  the  fact  that  many  a  scholar  has 
made  himself  such  and  reached  high  standards 
even  when  circumstances  have  deprived  him  of  the 
living  in  academic  halls.  Many  a  one  has  been  as 
apt  and  meet  for  his  learning  in  the  long  run  in 
that  way,  as  has  his  fortunate  neighbor  who  has 
had  the  most  extended  privileges  of  a  university. 
But,  generally  speaking,  the  more  widely  and  thor- 
oughly the  man  in  the  ministry  can  assimilate  the 
real  learning  of  a  university,  the  better  qualified  he 


UiNfVER: 


or 
.^^EARNING  15 

is  to  deal  with  the  men  of  his  time.  If  he  can,  let 
him  have  his  full  university  course  before  becoming 
a  Candidate  for  Holy  Orders.  And  further,  if  he 
can,  later  on,  let  him  specialize  in  any  post-graduate 
work,  and  that  at  the  University  either  in  our  own 
Country  or  the  Old  World  where  there  can  be 
found  the  most  distinguished  and  erudite  treatment 
and  teaching  of  that  specialty.  When  there  are  time 
and  means  and  favoring  conditions,  as  for  example 
at  some  of  the  Summer  Schools  at  University 
Centres,  for  that,  they  could  not  be  applied  to  a 
better  use.  Never  did  the  Church  need  sound 
scholarship  more  and  never  could  she  apply  it  more 
readily  or  efficiently  than  in  this  time  of  earnest 
truth  seeking  in  so  many  fields.  "  The  priest's  lips 
should  keep  knowledge  and  they  should  seek  the 
law  at  his  mouth :  for  he  is  the  messenger  of  the 
Lord  of  Hosts."  The  Church  should  never  be  will- 
ing to  have  her  highest  scholarship  abdicate  to  any 
other  scholarship.  And  may  the  day  come  when  in 
our  American  Church,  around  our  Cathedrals  or 
otherwise,  there  may  be  ample  provision  for  this  < 
lofty  purview  of  priestly  knowledge,  so  that  chosen 
scholars  without  other  avocations  may  hold  up  to 
their  generation  the  truest  learning  which  in  its 
white  light  blends  all  the  spectrum's  colors  of  hu- 
man progress.     There  is  in  every  period  of  active 


16  APT   AND   MEET 

research  only  a  new  challenge  to  priestly  learning 
to  become  "  the  astonishment  of  the  world "  as  it 
can  coordinate  all  truth  with  Him  "  in  whom  are 
hid  all  the  treasures  of  wisdom  and  knowledge." 
And  as  it  is,  probably  it  would  surprise  most  people 
to  know,  for  example,  what  an  output  of  such  Chris- 
tian literature  the  presses  of  the  world  are  making 
to-day. 

But  just  here  there  is  a  consideration  which  is  in 
some  danger  of  being  overlooked  in  urging  the  ful- 
ness of  university  opportunity.  It  can  never  be  the 
concern  of  the  university  as  it  must  be  of  the  Church 
to  see  that  whatever  other  learning  her  ministry  has 
it  must  have  a  specializing  on  the  immediate  lines 
of  preparation  we  have  just  been  considering. 
Somewhere  must  come  in  the  Great  "  Elective  "  of 
the  Church,  for  learning  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  and 
"  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowledge  of  the  same." 
Even  more  technical  in  a  good  sense  than  the  Law 
School  or  the  School  of  Medicine  must  be  the 
Divinity  School.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  we  have 
a  Faith  once  for  all  delivered.  We  do  not  gather 
it  out  of  the  atmosphere  as  we  go  along.  We  must 
take  time  to  absorb  it  and  coordinate  it  as  it  has 
been  delivered.  We  must  see  it  in  the  light  of  its 
original  languages  and  of  ancient  and  modern  schol- 
arship ;  we  must  follow  its  historical  stages  of  ac- 


LEARNING  17 

ceptance  or  challenge  by  mankind ;  we  must  ac- 
quaint ourselves  with  its  scientific  formulas;  we 
must  learn  its  adaptation  to  the  human  needs  of 
different  countries  and  different  centuries :  we  must 
try  to  interpret  it  into  our  own  conduct  and  condi- 
tions. Obviously  to  accomplish  this,  Seminary  Fac- 
ulties and  equipment  must  be  of  the  most  approved 
University  standards  of  efliciency  possible  for  their 
purpose.  All  of  that  takes  time  and  quiet  and  con- 
centration and,  as  is  said  of  bees,  a  certain  "  spirit  of 
the  hive."  We  remember  that  profound  maxim  of 
the  Latin  Father  that,  "  It  hath  not  pleased  God  to 
effect  man's  salvation  by  dialectic,"  and  can  easily 
understand  that  a  centre  charged  with  controversy 
or  high  philosophic  or  scientific  enquiry  is  not  op- 
portune for  this  essential  period  for  quiet  obsession 
by  the  truth  with  which  the  Church  would  dower 
her  ministry.  This  is  not  to  quarantine  the  Candi- 
date from  the  active  thought  and  research  that  he 
must  be  trained  to  welcome  and  be  ready  to  meet. 
What  I  have  already  said  of  the  ideal  University 
training  up  to  the  fulness  of  the  capacity  should 
relieve  our  theme  of  any  such  thought.  It  is  only 
to  claim  for  the  Church  a  distinct  and  whole-hearted 
and  undiverted  attention  for  a  time  to  her  proper 
shaping  influences  for  her  service,  in  order  that  she 
may  see  to  it  that  her  Candidates  are  apt  and  meet 


18  APT  AND   MEET 

for  her  especial  work  and  after  the  manner  she  has 
a  right  to  prescribe  for  herself.  And  so  she  must 
guard  the  integrity  and  the  identity  of  her  Seminary 
scholarship.  If  she  does  not,  no  General  Univer- 
sity, from  the  nature  of  the  case,  can  or  will.  There 
must  be  spiritual  as  well  as  intellectual  environ- 
ment. And  from  her  standpoint  at  any  rate  I  be- 
lieve the  more  reflection  that  is  given  this  necessity 
for  making  her  Candidates  apt  and  meet  the  more 
will  be  the  tendency  to  rectify  the  estimate  of  the 
place  of  the  Divinity  School  as  opportune,  however 
full  the  use  of  the  University  before  or  after  its 
course.  Consecrate  your  learning  in  these  years 
and  form  habits  of  study  then  with  high  ideals  that 
you  may  be  presented  apt  and  meet  at  your  Ordi- 
nation and  at  that  day  when  the  Chief  Shepherd 
shall  appear." 

That  it  may  please  Thee  to  illuminate  all  Bish- 
ops, Priests,  and  Deacons,  with  true  knowledge  and 
understanding  of  Thy  Word ;  and  that  both  by 
their  preaching  and  living  they  may  set  it  forth, 
and  show  it  accordingly ;  We  beseech  Thee  to  hear 
uSj  good  Lord. 


m 

GODLY  CONVEESATION 

To  be  apt  and  meet  for  our  "  godly  conversation," 
I  need  scarcely  explain  to  you,  covers  the  whole 
qualification  of  character  and  conduct.  Conversa- 
tion in  a  measure  is  only  conversion  "  writ  large." 
It  means  the  whole  make-up  of  the  manhood.  The 
Ee vised  Yersion  in  Galatians  1 :  13  where  St.  Paul 
is  referring  to  his  own  record,  substitutes  "  manner 
of  life  "  for  the  word  "  conversation  "  of  the  King 
James  Version.  So  that  here  the  familiar  use  of 
the  word  as  a  synonym  for  speech  or  talk  must  be 
widened  out  to  include  all  the  habit  of  the  person- 
ality of  which  language  is  only  one  expression. 
The  force  of  the  caution  at  the  threshold  of  the  Or- 
dination Office  is  that,  taken  all  in  all,  the  Candidate 
must  possess  some  marked  degree  of  a  godly  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  worldly  bent  and  demeanor. 
The  priests  must  be  clothed  with  righteousness,  if  the 
saints  are  to  sing  with  joyfulness.  The  character 
must  be  trained  to  tell  as  character.  St.  Paul  charged 
Timothy  with  that  when  he  wrote,  "  Be  thou  an  ex- 
ample of  the  believers     ...     in  conversation." 

And  further  the  word  in  the  original  seems  to 
19 


20  APT   AND   MEET 

convey  especially  the  idea  of  the  priest  not  by  him- 
self but  out  among  men — in  the  thick  of  things. 
In  the  use  of  the  word  in  Galatians  just  cited,  by 
"  conversation,"  or  "  manner  of  life,"  St.  Paul 
designates  that  stirring  part  of  his  life  when  he 
says,  "  Beyond  measure  I  persecuted  the  Church  of 
God  and  wasted  it."  And  so  "  godly  conversation  " 
is  no  mere  hothouse  plant  under  glass  but  a  hardy 
robust  out-in-the-open  kind  of  growth.  The  very 
camaraderie  of  Divinity  School  life,  with  its  kindly 
chaflf  and  bantering  over  mutual  foibles  and  callow- 
ness,  can  really  help  its  vigor.  The  more  the  man 
of  action  carries  it  into  his  pulpit  and  into  his 
ministrations,  with  the  contact  with  his  fellow  men 
and  into  the  whole  fierce  light  of  his  public  life  the 
better.  All  Christians  should  aim  at  it.  "  Who  is 
a  wise  man  and  endued  with  knowledge  among 
you  ?  " — says  St.  James — "  let  him  shew  out  of  a 
good  conversation  his  works  with  meekness  of 
wisdom."  But  the  priest  must  lay  seriously  to 
heart  that  his  is  the  bounden  duty  to  study  not  to 
be  the  average  man  in  this,  but  the  type. 

The  Abbe  Du  Bois  in  his  searching  and  stimulat- 
ing Treatise  on  "  The  Character  of  the  Christian 
Priest,"^  says,  "We  all  know  that  there  are  among 

^  *'  Holiness  to  the  Lord.  The  Character  of  the  Christian  Priest 
with  an  Introduction  by  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Carlisle," 


GODLY   COmrERSATION  21 

us" — he  was  writing  more  especially  of  France  but 
alas,  it  is  not  without  its  warning  everywhere — 
"  four  sorts  of  Priests,  very  different  the  one  from  the 
other — the  had  Priest,  the  lukewarm  and  hachslid- 
ing,  the  good,  and  finally  the  holy  Priest."  And 
then  in  chapters  which  amount  to  an  ordeal  of 
self-searching  to  any  one  who  reads  them  carefully, 
he  traces  the  distinguishing  features  of  these  four 
classes  as  they  are  manifest :  1st,  in  the  employ- 
ment of  time ;  2d,  in  Prayer ;  3d,  in  the  Holy 
Eucharist ;  4th,  in  Divine  Service ;  5th,  in  Self-ex- 
amination ;  6th,  in  Spiritual  reading  and  Yth,  in  the 
administration  of  the  Sacraments.  There  is  no 
little  food  for  sober  thought  in  them  and  one  may 
well  read  and  reread  them  many  times  in  his  minis- 
try with  ever  new  vision  for  higher  aims.  Indeed 
the  former  Bishop  of  Carlisle  who  wrote  the 
luminous  introduction  to  the  English  translation 
and  adaptation  of  Abbe  Du  Bois'  book  justly  says 
of  it  that  it  may  be  used  by  a  Clergyman  as  a 
"  Companion  of  Solitude,  a  friend  ever  ready  with 
a  word  of  advice,  a  voice  whispering  to  the  soul 
^  Come  up  higher.' "  And  suggesting  that  "  per- 
haps there  is  no  better  method  of  observing  the 
spiritual  barometer  of  a  Priest's  life  "  than  to  read 
over  on  his  knees  each  anniversary  of  his  Ordina- 
tion Day  the  Ordination  Service  and  especially  the 


22  APT   AND   MEET 

VOWS,  the  Bishop  added  his  sense  of  the  helpfulness 
to  such  exercises  of  this  book.  It  has  the  true  alti- 
tude and  ozone  for  ever  climbing  new  heights  of 
Godly  Conversation.  I  wish  it  could  be  among 
the  well-worn  books  of  devotion  of  every  priest. 
The  Candidate  for  Holy  Orders  in  his  preparation 
to  be  "  apt  and  meet  "  for  his  godly  conversation 
cannot,  however,  begin  too  early  to  act  upon  a  sug- 
gestion which  the  Prayer  Book  itself  gives  us  in  the 
so  salutary  charge  to  the  Priest  in  the  Ordinal.  It  is 
a  suggestion  of  the  utmost  moment  to  the  right  de- 
velopment of  qualifications  for  the  ministry  and 
one  which  is  so  Scriptural  and  Pentecostal  that  its 
prime  value  is  recognized  the  moment  attention  is 
called  to  it.  And  yet  there  may  be  grave  question 
as  to  whether  practically  it  is  acted  upon  or  even 
intelligently  grasped  as  it  might  be.  It  is  this : 
"  Howbeit  you  cannot  have  a  mind  and  will  thereto 
of  yourselves  ;  for  that  will  and  ability  is  given  of 
God  alone:  therefore  ye  oughts  and  have  need^  to 
jproAf  earnestly  for  His  Holy  Spirit^  Whatever  be 
the  range  or  objects  of  our  intercession,  whatever 
be  the  petitions  into  which  we  throw  most  earnest 
and  most  constant  interest,  here  we  have  something 
which  should  be  among  the  very  closest  concerns  of 
our  heart  and  the  most  fervent  and  most  un- 
ceasing of  our  every-day  prayers.     There  is  nothing 


GODLY   CONVERSATION  23 

we  need  to  ask  for  more  than  "for  His  Holy 
Spirit "  as  the  Prayer  Book  puts  it.  Our  life  in 
Christ  as  well  as  our  priesthood  in  Christ  must  at 
all  stages  invoke  its  Veni,  Creator  Spiritus.  It  is 
in  our  very  cry,  "  Abba,  Father."  It  is  in  the  wit- 
ness with  our  spirits  that  we  are  the  children  of 
God.  It  is  in  the  cleansing  of  our  thoughts  by  the 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  in  the  help  to 
our  infirmities.  It  is  in  the  intercession  for  us 
which  cannot  be  uttered.  It  is  in  the  sevenfold 
gifts  of  Confirmation.  It  is  in  the  consecration  of 
the  Holy  Eucharist.  And  so  in  our  high  Calling, 
the  inward  motion  which  whispered  it,  we  believe 
is  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  empowering  of  our 
Holy  Orders  is  through  our  reception  with  the 
laying  on  of  hands  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The 
Scriptures  we  are  to  teach  and  preach  and  the  open- 
ing of  our  understanding  and  of  the  understanding  of 
the  hearers  is  through  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  so  it  is 
but  part  of  the  whole  genius  of  godly  conversation  as 
it  is  to  be  a  fundamental  factor  in  our  ministry  to 
"  Continually  pray  to  God  the  Father,  by  the  media- 
tion of  our  only  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  for  the  heav- 
enly assistance  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  And  saintly 
lives  like  those  of  our  Anglican  Bishops  Andrewes 
and  Wilson  have  ever  found  sweet  satisfaction  in 
praying  directly  to  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  in  the  OflBce 


24  APT  AND   MEET 

of  Institution  in  the  Prayer  Book  we  pray  for  the 
congregation,  addressing,  "  O  God,  the  Holy  Ghost, 
Sanctifier  of  the  faithful."  It  translates  creed  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  into  priestly  conduct. 

Herein  then  lies  the  leading  to  a  settled  charac- 
teristic and  habit  of  priestly  prayer  and  that  is  to 
pray  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  pray  to  the  Holy 
Ghost  in  the  foremost  devotions  of  the  priestly  life. 
The  answer  to  that  prayer  is  in  all  the  cares  and 
courage  and  Sundawn  of  a  growing  ministry  to 
gain  here  a  little  and  there  a  little,  the  gift  of  a 
godly  conversation,  to  find,  as  the  joy  of  service 
deepens  and  the  vision  widens  and  the  life  takes  on 
precious  experiences,  what  the  grace  of  God  can  do 
for  rank  faults  and  rough  places  of  character. 
Out  of  the  very  failures  and  helplessness  of  life  and 
of  service  there  is  a  demonstration  of  the  Spirit,  of 
gentle  forces  wrestling  with  the  human  in  us  to 
make  it  over,  be  it  ever  so  little,  into  Christ  traits. 
The  answer  to  that  prayer  comes  too  in  that  strange 
blessed  conviction,  that  it  is  even  so,  that  through 
no  merit  of  our  own,  but  only  by  the  gracious  com- 
fort of  God's  Holy  Spirit,  we  are  what  we  are,  and 
that  out  of  all  that  is  inapt  and  unmeet.  He  has 
brought  a  simple  trust  that  we  can  be  more  and 
more  meet  for  the  Master's  use. 

How  far,  alas !  are  most  of  us  from  attaining  that 


GODLY   CONVERSATION  26 

godly  conversation !  But  it  is  yours  in  these  pre- 
paratory years  to  learn  to  yearn  for  it.  And  the 
self-struggle  with  its  lack, — ^yes,  of  special  points  of 
character  in  which  at  times  the  lack  seems  so 
chronic  as  to  be  almost  irremediable — is  the  very 
crisis  in  which  to  call  to  our  constant  succor  the 
Holy  Spirit  which  so  wonderfully  heals  our  infirmi- 
ties and  rounds  out  priestly  character. 


IV 

DUE  EXEECISE  OF  THE  MINISTET 

The  "  take  heed  "  of  the  challenge  in  the  Ordina- 
tion OflB^ce  puts  responsibility  just  where  it  belongs 
when  it  warns  all  who  have  to  do  with  encouraging 
the  one  thinking  of  the  ministry  to  look  to  it  that 
there  is  promise  that  "  he  will  exercise  his  ministry 
duly."  Misfits  in  the  ministry  are  not  seldom  due 
to  the  misfit  of  early  advice  given.  To  be  sure  this 
caution  may  not  be  as  much  needed  as  the  one  to 
guard  against  the  opposite  mistake  of  cold  watering 
the  kindling  of  the  flame  of  holy  vocation,  of  which 
something  may  be  said  elsewhere,  but  it  is  needed. 
"While  probably  no  one  under  our  American  condi- 
tions is  led  to  take  Holy  Orders  as  a  mere  matter 
of  family  tradition  and  course,  and  while  few  now 
live  under  the  delusion  that  the  ministry  is  a  sort 
of  asylum  for  those  who  fail  in  other  pursuits  of 
life,  there  is  much  to  be  desired  in  the  sense  of  sa- 
gacity not  to  say  thoroughness  with  which  prelimi- 
nary advice  should  be  given  to  those  to  whom  the 
possibility  of  Holy  Orders  occurs.  To  be  duly 
counseled    to    persevere  in  his  intention — as   the 

26 


DUE   EXERCISE   OF   THE   MINISTRY  27 

Canon  puts  it, — there  is  implied  no  perfunctory  nor 
shifted  responsibility  on  the  part  of  others  who  ad-  , 
vise,  whatever  be  that  of  his  "  immediate  Pastor,  or, 
if  he  have  none,  some  Presbyter  to  whom  he  is  per- 
sonally known."  The  Canon  requires  this  in  the 
interest  of  all  concerned  before  the  matter  can  in 
most  cases  intelligently  come  before  the  bishop  in 
the  sequence  of  the  steps. 

It  is  obvious  that  no  ministry  can  be  duly  exer- 
cised without  the  depth  of  purpose  to  fully  conse- 
crate it  "  to  the  honor  of  God  and  the  edifying  of 
His  Church."  But  we  propose  to  treat  each  of 
these  aims  by  itself  in  our  further  consideration  of 
our  series  of  topics  and  so  leave  them  for  the  pres- 
ent. That  will  enable  us  to  stop  now  upon  the  due 
exercise  of  the  ministry  in  some  of  its  aspects 
which,  though  less  profound  and  vital,  are  neverthe- 
less of  no  slight  consequence  in  an  efficient  clergy- 
man's life. 

Due  exercise  of  the  Holy  Office  breathes  every- 
where in  the  lofty  vision  of  the  Ordinal.  It  implies 
a  right  heart  and  right  method — the  giving  one's 
self  wholly  to  the  ministry  and  the  never  ceasing 
our  labor,  our  care  and  diligence  to  make  the 
most  of  ourselves  for  it,  and  more  especially  in  some 
ordinary  standards  of  activity  that  we  may  well 
consider  now.    If  he  is  not  very  much  on  his  guard, 


28  APT   AND    MEET 

there  are  many  circumstances  to  delude  a  young 
clergyman  into  the  idea  that  so  far  as  ordinary  stand- 
ards of  efficiency  are  concerned,  he  is  a  privileged 
character.  There  is  apt  to  be  a  good  deal  of  his  time 
that  is  not  mapped  out  for  him  as  it  is  for  a  business 
man  who  must  report  to  his  office  for  a  daily  routine. 
There  is  apt  to  be  no  such  sharp  and  instant  rebuke 
of  remissness  in  duty,  to  keep  him  up  to  the  standard, 
as  he  would  be  likely  to  find  in  other  callings. 
There  is  opportunity  for  a  good  deal  of  dawdling, 
and  a  good  deal  of  procrastination,  not  to  say  a 
good  deal  of  sheer  recreancy  to  routine  without  any 
immediate  chiding  save  perhaps  that  of  the  con- 
science. Provided  there  be  the  reporting  at  stated 
hours  of  Service  the  "  between-times  "  is  often  far 
more  at  the  disposal  of  the  young  clergyman  than 
he  would  find  in  any  other  serious  calling.  And  if 
in  that  between-times  he  does  not  keep  himself  up 
to  the  mark,  nobody  will  do  it  for  him,  for  a  while 
at  any  rate.  If  he  is  not  fixing  his  own  high  stand- 
ard of  what  due  exercise  of  a  ministry  ought  to  be 
in  the  study,  in  the  pastoral  calling,  in  the  self- 
discipline,  in  the  being  "  often  up-stairs  "  in  prayer 
as  was  said  of  Father  Carter,  nobody  for  the  time 
may  be  the  wiser,  nobody  will  stand  over  him  to 
tell  him  to  do  it  or  drop  the  Ministry,  after  the 
manner  of  a  superior  in  an  office.     Shirking  gen- 


DUE   EXERCISE   OF   THE   MINISTRY  29 

erally  brings  no  immediate  retribution,  if  there  is 
the  temptation  to  shirk.  Neither  does  a  show  of 
service  without  its  sufficiency.  In  every  large 
modern  business  there  is  generally  found  some 
searching  system  of  inspection  to  keep  all  depart- 
ments up  to  the  mark.  Periodically  the  data  of 
duty  are  scrutinized  and  any  slighting  or  bungling 
the  job  assigned  to  any  one  soon  comes  out  to  his 
instant  warning.  If  he  is  idling,  or  turning  to  his 
own  account  the  time  he  is  supposed  to  be  giving  to 
the  business  in  hand,  he  soon  hears  of  it  in  a  way  he 
does  not  forget.  If  he  only  makes  a  show  of  doing 
his  work  he  soon  has  to  face  the  consequences. 
While  there  could,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  be 
no  such  espionage  over  ministerial  service,  it  might 
fairly  be  asked  whether  some  more  thorough  and 
efficient  use  of  the  theory  of  inspection  we  have  in 
the  Church  might  not  have  its  advantage  all  around. 
Stated  inspections  of  care  in  keeping  records,  for 
example,  or  of  parish  accounts,  of  time  honestly 
given  to  Sunday-school  work,  to  missionary  study 
and  instruction,  to  systematic  pastoral  calling  and 
ministrations  to  the  sick,  to  wholesome  study  and 
reading,  to  preparation  for  the  pulpit  messages — 
something  of  that  sort  would  certainly  be  in  keep- 
ing with  modern  methods  of  capitalizing  energy  to 
the  best  result,  to  say  nothing  of  the  stimulus  and 


30  APT  AND   MEET 

search-warrant  effect  upon  weak  human  nature. 
Men  sometimes  do  their  best  work  by  committing 
themselves  to  courses  of  lectures  or  sermons  which 
compel  them  to  systematic  study  and  use  of  time,  and 
of  course  the  stated  hours  of  services  do  involve  a 
certain  amount  of  discipline  of  time.  But  notwith- 
standing all  this,  so  much  is  the  average  clergyman 
left  to  be  the  disposer  of  his  own  routine  and  the 
shaper  of  his  week's  duties  that  nobody  but  himself 
can  be  his  Inspector.  The  due  exercise  of  his 
ministry  will  depend  upon  his  rising  above  tempta- 
tions to  sloth,  or  slovenliness  of  habit,  physical,  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual.  His  people  will  indeed 
shrewdly  suspect  if  they  do  not  detect  such  blem- 
ishes, but  the  probability  is  their  censorship  will 
express  itself  in  general  terms  of  dissatisfaction 
rather  than  in  specific  counsels  and  in  a  desire  for  a 
change  of  clergyman  rather  than  in  hope  for 
reform. 

Every  one  of  you  means  under  God  to  make  his 
future  ministry  a  successful  ministry.  It  is  each 
one's  purpose  to  make  his  own  case  one  of  a  due  ex- 
ercise of  his  ministry.  The  vision  before  an  earnest 
and  healthy-minded  Candidate  is  one  of  hope  and 
heart.  But  sometimes  notions  of  what  success  in 
the  ministry  is  are  vague  and  unformed  and  the 
sooner  right  ideals  can  be  clarified  and  fixed,  the 


DUE   EXERCISE   OF   THE   MINISTRY  31 

better  and  the  more  intelligently  the  lines  of  prep- 
aration for  the  ministry  themselves  become  "  apt 
and  meet."  Such  ideas  involve  at  least  three 
things :  1.  A  right  standard  of  success.  2.  Con- 
centration upon  it  and  3.  A  right  motive  in  it. 

First,  then,  how  can  we  be  sure  that  our  working 
theory,  so  to  speak,  as  to  the  kind  of  clergymen  we 
wish  to  be  is  a  sound  one?  How  can  we  get  just 
the  right  conception  of  what  a  duly  exercised  min- 
istry is  ?  One  who  often  reads  and  reflects  upon, 
as  I  trust  each  one  of  you  will  do  in  devotional 
hours,  the  charge  to  the  Priest  in  the  Ordinal,  finds 
there  the  Standard  of  Success  once  for  all  outlined. 
It  is  singularly  full  and  practical  and  free  from  mis- 
conception. It  explains  the  office  and  charge  to 
which  you  are  to  be  called  as  one  in  which  you  are 
to  be  "  Messengers,  Watchmen,  and  Stewards  of  the 
Lord :  to  teach  and  to  premonish,  to  feed  and  pro- 
vide for  the  Lord's  family  ;  to  seek  for  Christ's  sheep 
that  are  dispersed  abroad,  and  for  His  children  who 
are  in  the  midst  of  this  naughty  world,  that  they 
may  be  saved  through  Christ  forever."  Though 
couched  in  general,  not  to  say  quaint  terms,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  a  more  compact  or  fructi- 
fying form  of  statement  of  the  lines  on  which  all 
that  is  really  worthy  of  the  name  "  success  "  in  the 
ministry,  must  be  exhibited.    Like  an  illuminated 


32  APT  ANB   MEET 

window  they  might  well  color  all  the  light  that 
floods  in  upon  a  Seminary  course.  I  will  here  only 
note  the  standard  for  you,  without  entering  into 
any  exposition  of  its  terms.  Indeed  if  you  make  a 
true  and  constant  use  of  it  in  prayer  and  purpose, 
your  whole  after  lives  will  show  its  realization  and 
its  joy. 

But  second,  to  be  apt  and  meet  after  such  a 
Standard  means  strong  tenacity  of  purpose  as  well 
as  clearness  of  vision  towards  it  now.  There  is 
such  a  danger  in  a  Divinity  School  life  as  a  listless 
drift  without  the  vim  of  oar-dip  and  pull  towards  a 
given  point  that  characterizes  zeal  and  athleticism  of 
character.  No  such  disposition  as  that  does  the 
Ordinal  know.  Initiative  and  alertness  and  push- 
ing towards  a  goal  animate  the  picture  there.  The 
very  phrases  are  charged  with  tense  vigor. 
"  Printed  in  your  remembrance,"  "  consider  with 
yourselves  the  end  of  the  ministry,"  "  see  that  ye 
never  cease  your  labor,  your  care  and  diligence 
until  you  have  done  all  that  lieth  in  you  according 
to  your  bounden  duty,"  "  with  how  great  care  and 
study  ye  ought  to  apply  yourselves,"  "  consider 
how  studious  ye  ought  to  be,"  "that  you  have 
clearly  determined,  by  God's  grace,  to  give  your- 
selves wholly  to  this  OflSce,"  "  that  as  much  as  lieth 
in  you  you  will  apply  yourselves  wholly  to  this  one 


DUE  EXERCISE   OF  THE   MINISTRY  33 

thing,  and  draw  all  your  cares  and  studies  this 
way  " — these  are  ringing  words  not  merely  for  the 
Ordination  Service  in  which  they  are  found,  but  for 
proper  Divinity  School  spirit  and  regime.  So 
there  is  the  sizing  of  the  mind  towards  the  satisfy- 
ing standards  of  success  that  reach  so  far  beyond 
any  scale  of  bulk,  or  sound  or  statistics  of  the  work. 
Then  third,  back  of  the  standard  of  success 
and  back  of  the  sturdiness  of  aim  in  adhering  to  the 
standard  there  is  the  really  vital  matter  of  the 
motive  in  it  all.  And  as  to  that  there  is  no  more  op- 
portune time  for  deep  probing  than  in  these  shaping 
years  of  your  life.  Confessedly  motives  are  often- 
times mixed  and  puzzling.  And  probably  we  must 
ever  allow  for  growth  in  good  motives,  especially 
when  they  are  fundamental  to  a  career.  Then,  too, 
misgivings  as  to  our  motives  must  be  expected. 
But  with  it  all,  one  contemplating  Holy  Orders 
does,  I  am  convinced,  after  years  of  confidences 
from  honest  lives,  have  some  of  his  most  blessed 
and  lasting  demonstrations  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
the  process  which  goes  on  in  his  own  spirit  of  find- 
ing the  Comforter  comforting  and  strengthening 
him  with  the  gradual  consecration  of  his  own  mo- 
tive into  a  surer  and  surer  inward  motion.  Thence 
comes  not  merely  the  consciousness  of  vocation  to 
the  Holy  Ministry  but  of  profounder  absorption  in 


34  APT  AND   MEET 

its  higher  ambitions.  In  a  St.  Paul  this  reached 
that  rare  stage  from  which  he  could  afla.rm  "  For 
me  to  live  is  Christ." 

This  is  the  only  safeguard  against  the  subtile 
ambition  for  self  which  may  lurk  even  in  what  out- 
wardly seems  a  successful  ministry.  There  is 
probably  in  the  English  language  no  more  search- 
ing, not  to  say  startling  disclosure  of  the  peril  of 
that  ambition  than  in  the  memorable  sermon  of 
Mozley's  on  The  Reversal  of  Human  Judgment^ 
which  I  commend  to  your  careful  reading.  It  has 
been  called  by  a  clergyman,  not  of  our  own  Church, 
the  "greatest  sermon  of  modern  times"  and  a 
New  England  college  Kesident  says  he  reads  it 
once  a  year  for  its  moral  tonic.  I  will  only  quote 
here  one  paragraph:  "The  truth  is,  wherever 
there  is  action,  effort,  aim  at  certain  objects  and 
ends; — wherever  the  flame  of  human  energy 
mounts  up;  all  this  may  gather  either  round  a 
centre  of  pure  and  unselfish  desire,  or  round  a 
centre  of  egotism :  and  no  superiority  in  the  sub- 
ject of  the  work  can  prevent  the  lapse  into  the  in- 
ferior motive.  In  the  most  different  fields  of  ob- 
jects this  may  be  the  same :  it  is  the  quality  of  the 
individual.  Whatever  he  does,  if  there  is  a  degen- 
eracy in  the  temper  of  his  mind,  it  all  collects  and 
gathers,  by  a  false  direction  which  it  receives  from 


DUE   EXERCISE   OF  THE  MINISTBY  8S 

the  false  centre  of  attraction,  round  himself, "^^  This 
exposes  the  awful  temptation  to  an  ambitious  min- 
istry where  the  ambition  is  for  self.  It  was  on  a 
very  pinnacle  of  the  Temple  that  the  Tempter  asked 
the  Master  to  cast  Himself  down  for  self  and  so  to 
thwart  His  work  for  God.  Outwardly  it  may 
counterfeit  success,  but  the  motive  is  self-centred. 
The  ministry  duly  exercised  is  only  a  success  be- 
cause it  is  centred  in  Christ. 


TO  THE  HONOE  OF  GOD 

The  motive  in  the  ministry  is  the  vital  point. 
We  have  in  the  previous  pages  already  touched 
upon  its  determination  of  the  due  exercise  of  the 
ministry.  The  challenge  in  the  Ordinal,  however, 
goes  much  further.  It  distinctly  applies  the 
motive  test  to  the  result  produced  by  a  ministry. 
It  implies  that  to  be  "  apt  and  meet  "  the  motive 
is  clear  and  fixed.  We  are  of  course  here  anticipat- 
ing a  condition  of  heart  you  are  supposed  to  ap- 
proximate on  the  day  of  your  ordination,  when 
you  are  presented  for  that  challenge.  Here  and 
now  you  may  have  much  still  ahead  of  you  in  the 
way  of  preparation  for  the  right  frame  of  heart 
then  as  well  as  for  the  right  familiarity  with  the 
preliminary  courses  of  study.  Motives  need  train- 
ing as  well  as  memory  or  other  intellectual  or 
spiritual  faculties.  Few  can  expect  to  find  them- 
selves at  this  stage  what  they  hope  to  be  at 
ordination  time.  The  very  purpose  of  your  pre- 
scribed course  is  to  afford  opportunity  for  the 
patient  evolution  of  self  on  the  high  lines  of  vision 

36 


TO  THE  HONOE  OP  GOD  37 

of  your  vocation.  It  may  be  but  the  sign  of  an 
honest  and  true  heart  now  to  be  subject  to  misgivings 
about  motives  and  to  have  other  evidences  of  the 
need  of  careful  attention  to  them  and  cultivation 
of  them.  In  a  word  no  one  must  take  it  as  an 
occasion  for  losing  heart  if  he  finds  it  diflficult 
to  isolate  his  motives  for  treatment  as  he  would, 
or  even  to  fully  persuade  himself  whether  they 
are  as  single  as  he  would  wish.  Granted  that 
sense  of  vocation  which  in  itself  is  not  always  easy 
to  define  other  than  as  a  leading  of  conscience  and 
life,  God  often  shows  us  our  way  by  successive 
steps,  without  letting  us  see  very  far  ahead,  as  He 
did  St.  Paul  at  and  just  after  the  time  of  his  con- 
version when  he  had  his  work  and  his  fitting  into 
its  sphere  gradually  unfolded  to  him.  A  whole- 
some Divinity  School  Course  is  as  apt  to  be  a 
succession  of  self-revelations  with  headway  in 
character  flashed  by  their  light  as  of  progress 
in  learning.  So  men  grow  towards  their  ministry. 
They  press  forward  with  St.  Paul  towards  the 
mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in 
Christ  Jesus,  though  with  St.  Paul  there  must  be 
the  lifelong  realization  of  something  still  to  be 
"  apprehended." 

If  we  put  it  then  in  some  such  way  as  this — 
how  to  make  the  most  of  a  course  in  motive  train- 


38  .  APT   AND   MEET 

ing — it  will  perhaps  invest  the  two  remaining 
topics  of  this  series  of  addresses  with  more  im- 
mediate and  live  interest  for  us.  For  the  Ordinal 
makes  very  plain  the  two  primary  objects  towards 
which  the  motive  of  the  true  servant  of  Jesus 
Christ  must  be  more  and  more  drawn.  The  one 
is  the  Honor  of  God.  The  other  is  the  Edification 
of  His  Church.  The  first  is  the  only  one  we  shall 
dwell  upon  to-day,  leaving  the  other  for  the  con- 
cluding pages  of  this  series. 

Obviously  in  what  is  so  strictly  personal  and 
profound  in  character  as  motive  we  have  to  be 
self-taught  with  the  aid  of  that  Holy  Spirit 
which  searcheth  the  deep  things  of  man.  The 
utmost  that  another  can  hope  to  do  in  the  way 
of  this  training  is  to  throw  out  a  few  general  sug- 
gestions. 

I  think  we  are  all  conscious  of  an  element  of 
vagueness  and  what  is  called  obscurantism  when 
we  attempt  to  point  deliberate  purpose  towards 
the  Honor  of  God.  The  aim  somehow  seems  to 
lack  sharpness  of  outline.  Our  own  honor,  or 
the  honor  of  some  one  or  some  institution  in  which 
we  are  deeply  interested,  may  have  all  the  range 
and  roundness  of  the  bulPs-eye  of  a  target.  The 
motive  which  lies  back  of  the  seeking  such  honor 
is  perfectly  identified  and  perfectly  well  under- 


TO  THE  HONOR  OF   GOD  39 

stood.  As  Mozley  intimates,  self-seeking  may  blight 
a  whole  ministry.  But  to  experience  the  same 
absorption  in  sighting  the  aim  and  the  same  con- 
centration of  powers  upon  carrying  out  the  motive 
where  God's  honor  is  concerned,  sometimes,  to 
tell  the  truth,  seems  baffling,  if  not  indeed  beyond 
us.  Just  what  do  we  mean,  and  just  how  are  we 
to  show  that  we  mean  it,  when  we  speak  of  doing 
anything  for  the  glory  of  God  ?  How  is  our 
ministry  to  become  really  actuated  by  anything 
so  much  lifted  above  human  motive?  Is  there 
a  falsetto  note  in  it  as  perhaps  a  cynic  would  claim 
for  Keble's 

''be  your  strife 
To  lead  on  earth  an  angePs  life^'  ? 

The  simplest  schooling  in  the  reality  of  the  ex- 
perience of  honoring  God's  name,  and  one  which 
would  refute  any  denial  or  challenge  of  its  positive 
possession  and  sphere,  is  in  sacred  hymns  and  songs 
of  praise  to  God.  This  voices  the  honoring  of  God 
with  our  words.  The  universal  psalmody  of  the 
Church  and  of  the  ages,  the  favorite  hymns  and 
fervent  uplifts  which  enter  into  and  become  part  of 
any  religious  life  attuning  some  of  its  tenderest 
sentiment,  need  but  be  cited  to  reveal  the  honor- 
ing   of    God    as   almost    a   veritable   instinct  of 


40  APT   AND   MEET 

humanity.  No  one  need  doubt  that  he  knows  what 
it  is  to  honor  God  who  has  ever  "come  before 
His  presence  with  a  song."  And  here  is  an  oppor- 
tunity for  decidedly  strengthening  a  habit  of 
praise.  The  thousand  and  one  distractions  which 
break  in  upon  worship  we  realize  are  distractions 
of   praise   as  well  as  of   prayer. 

^^  Hosannas  languish  on  our  tongues." 

Eesolutely  and  constantly  must  the  habit  be  culti- 
vated— as  it  can  be  in  these  Chapel  Services — to  put 
more  devotion  into  our  praise.  The  glorias  we  sing 
can  become  the  true  exercises  for  it.  All  our  chants 
and  anthems  and  hymns  as  well  as  spoken  thanksgiv- 
ings, up  to  the  High  Eucharistic  praise  itself,  may 
constitute  the  very  preparatory  course  we  need  for 
self-instruction  in  that  aspiration  of  the  Psalmist, 
"  Praise  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  all  that  is  within 
me  praise  His  Holy  Name."  For  your  own  soul's 
sake  and  for  the  sake  of  your  future  congregations 
you  can  find  no  better  qualification  for  leadership 
in  worship  than  that.  That  marks  the  true  motive 
back  of  all  Liturgiology  and  of  all  Ceremonial. 

Further,  your  work,  as  well  as  your  worship,  will 
eventually  evince  careful  self-schooling,  or  the  lack 
of  it,  in  fostering  and  acting  upon  promptings  for  the 
Honor  of  God.     It  is  of  the  first  importance  that 


TO   THE   HONOR   OF   GOD  41 

you  should  accustom  yourselves  even  in  the  day's 
work  of  your  Divinity  School  life  to  do  things  be- 
cause they  may  accredit  your  calling  and  so  the 
One  who  has  called  you.  Very  often  this  will  be 
to  simply  try  to  overcome  some  common  fault  be- 
cause it  will  if  not  corrected  injure  your  usefulness 
out  in  the  ministry.  If,  for  example,  you  detect  in 
yourself  signs  of  being  opinionated,  of  an  aggres- 
sive rather  than  a  receptive  attitude,  of  lying 
down  upon  an  easy-going  routine  rather  than  of 
alert  initiative  and  fidelity  to  study,  of  conceit,  of 
carelessness  in  personal  habit  or  social  usage,  of 
eccentricity  or  chronic  mannerism,  of  pugnacity  or 
moroseness  of  disposition,  of  lack  of  system  or  of 
esjprit  de  corjps^ — these  and  like  limitations  on  the 
later  usefulness,  not  to  say  present  progress,  could 
all  be  dealt  with  eflPectively  when  one  sets  about  it 
from  the  profound  consideration  that  the  very 
peccadilloes  of  the  ministry  oftentimes  sadly  inter- 
fere with  its  effect  as  an  agency  for  the  honor  of 
God. 

Then  just  to  learn  how  to  bear  things  for  Christ's 
sake  is  another  most  blessed  and  most  potent  edu- 
cation in  the  motive  of  honoring  God.  And  the 
alphabet  of  trial  in  the  years  of  preparation  is  one 
by  which  the  future  priest  learns  to  spell  out  the 
sentences  and  chapters  of  struggle  and  cross-bear- 


42  APT   AND   MEET 

ing  in  that  never-ceasing  labor  and  care  and  dili- 
gence which  are  to  come.  The  pinch  of  close 
management  in  money  matters,  the  not  infrequent 
anxiety  about  support  of  others  of  close  kin  in  some 
measure  dependent  on  us,  disappointments,  lone- 
liness, fear  of  impaired  health,  and  many  another 
burden  which  is  not  strange  to  Divinity  School 
years,  we  may  brood  over  or  learn  to  bravely  bear. 
And  the  one  reflection  above  all  others  which  will 
teach  and  sweeten  that  lesson  will  be  the  sense  of 
opportunity  to  bear  them  not  for  ourselves,  but  for 
the  honor  of  God.  And  that  aim  learned  will 
communicate  a  genius  to  the  whole  ministry.  Out 
of  it  as  out  of  almost  no  other  trait  will  men  take 
knowledge  of  you  that  you  have  been  with  Jesus. 
You  will  attain  a  new  measure  of  being  apt  and 
meet  to  exercise  your  ministry  duly  for  the  honor 
of  God.  Felicitously  can  be  fitted  into  any  life — 
and  it  is  a  good  midday  prayer  in  the  workaday 
hours — that  older  Collect  for  St.  Andrew's  Day 
from  the  First  Book  of  Edward  VI  which  in- 
culcates the  signal  cross-bearing  of  St.  Andrew 
back  of  the  following  his  Lord  of  the  other  more 
familiar  Collect  in  our  Prayer  Book : 

Almighty  God,  which  hast  geven  suche  grace 
to  thy  Apostle  Say  net  Andrew  that  he  counted 
the  sharp  and  painful  death  of  the  crosse  to  be  an 


TO   THE   HONOR   OF   GOD  43 

high  honor  and  a  great  glory  :  Graunt  us  to 
take  and  esteme  all  troubles  and  adversities 
which  shal  come  unto  us  for  thy  sake,  as  things 
proflytablefor  us  toward  the  obtaining  of  everlast- 
ing life  :  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lorde. 


VI 

THE  EDIFYING  OP  HIS  CHUECH 

If  every  one  who  is  admitted  to  Holy  Orders 
may  truly  be  called  "  the  child  of  many  prayers  " 
it  is  notable  how  much  especial  prayer  the  Church 
offers  for  him  that  his  ministry  may  produce  result 
in  the  edifying  of  the  Church.  The  ordination 
Scriptures,  collects,  vows,  exhortations.  Litany  and 
the  Ember  Prayers  in  one  form  or  another  impress 
upon  us  that  we  earnestly  consider  with  ourselves 
"  the  end  of  the  Ministry  towards  the  children  of 
God,  towards  the  Spouse  and  Body  of  Christ." 
To  be  "  apt  and  meet "  then  with  a  clarified 
and  controlling  motive  to  make  the  ministry  count 
on  unmistakable  lines  of  upbuilding  of  the  Church 
in  truth  and  in  practice  should  be  the  early  and 
constant  aspiration  of  one  contemplating  the  Holy 
Office. 

It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  any  one  would 
seriously  take  any  step  from  a  sense  of  vocation 
without  some  general  notion  of  proving  useful 
to  the  Church.  But  general  notions  will  always 
bear  scrutiny.     The  times  are  times    of    higher 

44 


THE   EDIFYING   OF   HIS   OHUBCH  45 

criticism  of  self  as  well  as  of  Scripture,  and  in  both 
fields  the  best  safeguard  against  unhealthy  higher 
criticism  is  sound,  patient  discrimination  of  right 
from  wrong  principles.  Take  that  general  notion 
then  that  is  more  or  less  a  vision  before  you  as 
you  picture  yourself  in  years  to  come  with  your 
parish  and  place  in  the  ministry  making  things 
move  around  you,  as  you  hope  to,  and  having  a 
chance  to  carry  out  some  preaching  and  working 
plans  of  your  own  which  you  believe  will  tell  upon 
the  welfare  of  your  congregation.  There  is  this 
sense  in  which  the  Candidate  is  the  Father  of  the 
Priest,  as  the  child  is  Father  of  the  man.  And  that 
pleasure  of  hope  is  something  to  be  thankful  for 
all  your  days.  The  self  you  project  into  the  future 
from  a  healthy  outlook  generally  exhibits  the  evi- 
dence of  a  better  self.  But  you  need  to  make  the 
most  of  the  opportunity  to  have  an  eye  to  the  very 
best  shaping  of  your  ideals.  You  should  distinctly 
aspire  to  edification  in  the  truth.  You  should  be 
satisfied  with  nothing  short  of  the  highest  con- 
ceptions of  what  Church  life  and  progress  are.  You 
do  not  desire  to  work  in  any  plane  lower  than  the 
one  to  which  you  can,  by  the  grace  of  God,  be 
equal.  You  are  aware  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  building  upon  the  foundation  of  "  gold,  silver, 
precious    stones,    wood,   hay,    stubble."    You  are 


46  APT   AND   MEET 

determined,  so  far  as  lieth  in  you,  to  build  upon 
the  foundation  which  is  Jesus  Christ. 

St.  Paul  has  carefully  outlined  for  us  what  we 
might  reverently  call  the  motive  of  God  Himself 
in  giving  us  the  grace  of  the  ministry  according 
to  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ.  It  is  "  for  the 
perfecting  of  the  saints,  unto  the  work  of  minister- 
ing, unto  the  building  up  of  the  body  of  Christ." 
This  the  Apostle  seems  to  reveal  to  us  as  the 
very  mind  of  Christ  for  His  Ministry.  It  is  the 
orbiting  of  its  sphere  as  of  the  "stars  in  their 
courses." 

There  can  be  no  higher  motive  than  to  try  to 
have  revealed  in  us  this  true  apotheosis  of  the 
Ministry.  Note  accurately  its  terms.  There  is 
an  ultimate  and  attesting  result  in  view,  to  wit, 
the  perfecting  of  the  saints.  There  are  two  cor- 
related processes  leading  up  to  that  result  which 
are  immediate  and  essential,  the  work  of  minister^ 
ing  and  the  building  up  of  the  body  of  Christ.  As 
a  motive  to  interpret  itself  into  our  personal 
action  it  presents  itself  something  like  this:  I 
must  "  devote  myself  soul,  body  and  spirit  with  all 
their  powers  and  faculties  "  to  this  ministry,  this 
spiritual  service.  I  must  apply  that  service  stead- 
fastly to  the  building  up  of  the  Church.  And  all 
this  must  be  with  the  firm  determination  and  pur- 


THE   EDIFYING   OF   HIS   CHURCH  4:1 

pose  to  show  result  primarily  in  the  perfecting 
holiness  in  the  fear  of  God  among  those  committed 
to  my  charge.  Here  we  have  the  secret  of  a  sin- 
gleness of  aim.  The  theory  of  our  calling  is 
blazoned  over  our  pathway,  however  difficult  it 
may  be  to  follow  it.  Every  man  may  see  here  how 
to  frame  the  headings  for  the  really  vital  statistics 
of  his  ministry,  no  matter  what  other  showing  he 
may  make  or  the  world  may  judge  him  by.  Back 
of  every  parish  register  and  every  Convention  Re- 
port and  every  current  inventory  and  every  speak- 
ing well,  or  speaking  ill  of  him  and  his  work  by 
men,  his  own  private  memorandum  m  /oro  eon- 
scienticB  must  ever  keep  a  keen  and  anxious  eye 
upon  what  comes  under  these  three  items.  1.  Marks 
of  my  work  as  a  real  work  of  ministering  in  spirit- 
ual things.  2.  Proofs  of  upbuilding  of  the  work 
of  the  Church,  and  3.  Tokens  of  Grace  upon  my 
people  and  of  their  growth  in  grace.  It  is  of  course 
impossible  to  know  the  full  contents  under  any 
of  these  three  heads,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  is  pos- 
sible not  to  be  ignorant  of  them.  Enough  will 
come  to  one  who  scans  such  data  at  any  rate  to 
cheer  or  chide  him  with  insight  into  the  true  state 
of  affairs  and  with  a  great  deal  more  significance 
than  the  big  or  little  showing  of  some  more  super- 
ficial statistics.     Size  and  sound  may,  and  generally 


48  APT  AND   MEET 

do,  go  with  the  working  of  such  ideal  motives,  and 
sometimes  the  saddest  evidence  of  the  lack  of  them 
is  in  the  meagre  statistic.  There  is  nothing  wrong 
about  those  other  tallies  of  genuine  accomplish- 
ment just  noted.  And  there  is  a  liability  of  cant 
lurking  about  an  avowed  disregard  of  ordinary 
standards  of  success  when  they  disclose  lack  of 
right  or  virile  motive.  But  all  the  same  the  deep 
peace  and  comfort  of  the  priest  must  depend  chiefly 
upon  his  tenacity  of  purpose  in  keeping  the  motive 
of  his  ministry  true  to  the  single  lines  named  by 
St.  Paul  as  above. 

We  may  dwell  upon  each  one  of  them  a  little  as 
they  are  all  closely  allied  to  the  Edification  of 
Christ's  Church. 

Preeminently  the  work  of  ministering  must  be  a 
spiritual  ministration.  Whatever  else  the  priest 
may  upbuild,  he  is  first  of  all  committed  to  the  up- 
building of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.  And  his  habit 
of  ministration  must  be  formed  accordingly.  No 
proof  is  needed  here  that  anything  that  contributes 
to  the  uplift  of  humanity  in  some  measure  is 
auxiliary  to  the  spread  of  Christ's  Kingdom.  And 
a  priest  with  varied  parts  may  use  many  wider 
fields  of  ministration.  But  his  reason  for  being  in 
the  priesthood  is  that  he  has  had  the  vocation  to 
those  ministerial  gifts  of  a  special  sort.     St.  Paul 


THE   EDIFYING   OF   HIS    CHURCH  49 

made  a  classification  of  some  of  them  with  direct 
reference  to  his  epitome  of  the  purpose  of  the  min- 
istry just  suggested  for  our  high  motive.  "  He  gave 
some  to  be  apostles ;  and  some  prophets  ;  and  some 
evangelists ;  and  some  pastors  and  teachers." 
These  active  agencies  notably  sample  those  of 
spiritual  import.  And  so  while  there  is  no  reason 
that  we  should  not  have  good  administrators  and 
financiers  and  leaders  in  philanthropic  movements, 
the  spiritual  values  of  these  interests  must  ever  be 
sufficient  to  support  the  main  and  direct  spiritual 
values  of  the  ministry  as  it  reflects  the  prophetic, 
priestly  and  kingly  character  of  Christ.  The  young 
man  who  goes  into  the  ministry  in  these  days  has 
to  be  particularly  on  his  guard  against  allowing  these 
spiritual  values  to  be  submerged.  What  doth  it 
profit  the  priest  if  he  covers  the  whole  range  of  gen- 
eral current  activities  for  good  and  he  loses  the  spirit- 
ual glow  from  his  own  chancel  and  his  own  pews  ! 

And  then  a  high  purpose  to  strive  that  the  bounds 
of  Christ's  Kingdom  may  be  unfailingly  enlarged 
will  make  one  eager  to  spend  time  and  energy  and 
thought  intelligently  upon  that  which  does  make 
forward  movement  in  the  Church.  The  phrase 
"  building  up  "  is  not  an  uncommon  one  with  refer- 
ence to  the  ministry.  We  speak  of  "  building  up  " 
a  reputation,  "  building  up  "  a  treasury,  "  building 


50  APT   AND   MEET 

up  "  a  congregation,  "  building  up  "  an  institution, 
a  following,  a  party,  a  literature,  a  movement. 
These  may,  or  may  not,  amount  to  building  up  the 
Church.  They  may  cause  bloom,  and  then  again 
they  may  leave  blight.  As  ends  in  themselves  they 
are  poor  makeshifts  for  the  motive  we  have  been 
urging,  bound  to  perish  in  the  using.  Success  so 
written  is  like  a  temporary  electric  sign  that  blazes 
over  your  sidewalk  a  while  and  then  goes  to  the 
rubbish  heap. 

And  the  worse  feature  in  such  misuse  of  energy 
in  building  up  everything  but  the  pure  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ,  is  its  disclosure  of  want  of  confidence 
in  His  Kingdom,  especially  in  its  power.  All  these 
other  things  would  not  have  that  close  attention 
when  they  become  diversions  from  the  Church  it- 
self, if  the  Church  filled  the  field  of  vision.  It  sug- 
gests that  text  in  the  trade-mark  of  the  South  Sea 
Company  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  company 
carried  credulity  and  the  gambling  spirit  of  the  age 
to  the  point  of  becoming  a  synonym  for  wildest 
speculation  in  its  designation  as  "  The  South  Sea 
Bubble."  To  the  fore  in  its  trade-mark  was  the 
Latin  of  the  text,  "  In  Thee,  O  Lord,  have  I  put  my 
trust."  Such  a  profession  of  trust  was  an  arrant 
misplacement.  And  so  the  absorbing  motive  in  an 
honest  and  true  heart  to  work  for  the  edification  of 


THE   EDIFYING   OF   HIS   CHURCH  51 

the  Church  will  believe  in  the  power  of  the  Church. 
Secondary  methods  will  always  be  secondary. 
And  that  belief,  with  that  motive,  will  tend  to 
emancipate  the  ministry  from  all  sorts  of  claptrap 
methods  of  getting  money  for  the  Church,  and  all 
sorts  of  circus  methods  of  drawing  crowds,  and  all 
sorts  of  catering  the  faith  to  a  popular  palate  and  all 
sorts  of  loss  of  head  or  of  backbone. 

Church  progress  in  truth  and  work  will  register 
itself  in  terms  of  life,  life  of  the  individual  and  life 
of  the  congregation  which  ye  serve.  It  means  a 
springtime  to  a  dead  congregation,  a  harvest  to  one 
growing  in  grace.  You  plant  and  water  and  God 
will  give  the  increase.  The  perfecting  of  the  saints 
will  approve  His  favor  and  gracious  goodness  with 
you.  Your  epistle  will  write  itself  in  their  hearts 
as  you  become  the  faithful  messenger.  Your  lead- 
ing them  by  still  waters  will  reward  you  as  the 
Watchman  of  their  pathway.  Your  stewardship  of 
sacrament  and  truth  will  bring  them  more  and  more 
closely  to  His  sacrifice  and  His  promise.  Apt  and 
meet  to  duly  exercise  your  ministry  here  to  the 
honor  of  God  and  the  edifying  of  His  Church,  may 
you  fight  the  good  fight,  and  finish  your  course, 
and  keep  the  faith  so  that  you  may  be  apt  and 
meet  for  the  crown  of  righteousness  which  the  Lord, 
the  righteous  Judge,  shall  give  you  at  that  day. 


VII 

THE  MAN  OF  GOD 

Jesus  Christ,  Very  God  of  Very  God,  was  made 
very  man,  that  every  man  might  be  made  a  man  of 
God.  This  covers  every  high  ideal  of  humanity. 
It  gives  focus  to  all  the  light  of  the  world  that 
Christ  is.  It  makes  a  kindling  point  for  all  the  light 
of  man  to  burn  with  the  desire  to  find,  to  follow,  to 
be  changed  into  the  image  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
ideal  furnishes  a  singularly  clear  and  constant  pur- 
pose in  life  for  every  one  of  us.  The  uplift  of  vision 
is  towards  attaining  the  qualities  and  the  gifts  of 
the  man  of  God.  The  heights  may  seem  almost  too 
dizzy  for  us  to  climb.  The  present  personal  stage 
of  realization  may  strike  us  as  almost  prohibitory. 
The  stretch  of  distance  and  difficulty  may  dismay 
us.  But  once  the  vision  possesses  us,  we  cannot  be 
as  we  were  before.  Something  new  has  dawned 
upon  the  life.  The  sight  may  become  clouded, 
darkened,  lost.  It  cannot  be  forgotten  that  God 
has  spoken  some  time  in  vision  to  His  servant.  The 
aspiration  has  registered  itself  in  the  life. 

That  blessed  vision  may  be  very  full  and  open  to 
us  at  times  of  new  steps  towards  the  work  of  the 

62 


THE   MAN   OF   GOD  53 

ministry.  When  whisperings  first  come  to  us  of  the 
possibility  of  our  call  to  it ;  when  they  have  deepened 
into  the  strange,  sweet  conviction  that  we  are  surely 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  step  by  step 
— oftentimes  shrinking  steps,  too — inevitably  mov- 
ing under  that  call ;  when  we  become  actual  candi- 
dates for  Holy  Orders;  when  we  begin  our  so 
determining  Divinity  School  life;  when  we  enter 
upon  a  new  year  of  that  life ;  just  as  when  the  un- 
speakable fervor  of  the  Ordination  hour  comes, 
or  any  signal  joy  of  the  after-ministry  is  ours,  the 
aspiration  to  be  more  nearly  a  man  of  God  is  high 
and  strong  and  vital.  And,  if  we  would  but  know 
it,  in  an  honest  and  true  heart  it  always,  more  or 
less,  in  the  subconsciousness,  is  possessing  us  with  a 
chiding,  correcting,  inciting  sense  of  standard. 

The  preparatory  course  of  a  candidate  for  Holy 
Orders,  without  some  such  animating,  controlling 
purpose,  would  be  like  a  world  without  a  sun.  The 
whole  training  would  lack  orbit  and  light  and 
system.  But  you  who  are  here  are  but  typical, 
I  believe,  of  that  elevation  of  aim  which  is  a  happy 
sign  of  ingenuous  young  manhood,  and  especially  of 
our  young  American  manhood,  in  the  ranks  of  both 
clergy  and  laity  to-day.  To  be  no  less  than  men  of 
God,  consecrated  to  some  ennobling  service,  whether 
in  the  Church,  or  philanthropies,  or  civic  opportuni- 


54  APT   AND   MEET 

ties — SO  pressing  with  the  call  for  loyal,  alert 
laymen — or  in  the  Holy  Ministry,  this  is  firing  the 
imagination  and  shaping  the  careers  of  an  increas- 
ing number  in  very  contrast  with — yes,  perhaps,  in 
protest  against — the  self-centredness  which  is  so 
prevalent  in  this  age.  Not  to  mention  other  evi- 
dence of  this,  the  Brotherhood  of  St.  Andrew  is 
every  year  adding  to  a  radiant  roll,  already  not 
small,  of  those  who,  with  independent  means,  are 
devoting  their  time  and  competence  mainly  to  the 
high  objects  of  that  true  Twentieth  Century 
Brotherhood.  And  the  stirrings  within  your  own 
souls — which  I  venture  to  think  I  do  not  mistake — 
reveal  to  you,  if  you  have  at  all  divined  their  mean- 
ing, something  of  the  same  happy  kind. 

There  are  other  things,  of  course,  that  float  before 
the  mind  in  the  forecast  of  the  Ministry.  To  be  a 
man  of  education  is  one  of  them.  Long  before  the 
challenge  in  the  Ofiice  for  the  Ordination  of  the 
Deacon  the  thoughtful  candidate  has  wrestled  with 
the  question  how  he  is  to  be  "  apt  and  meet  for  his 
learning"  to  exercise  his  ministry  duly.  It  is  no 
new  thing  to  you.  And  it  has  impressed  you  with 
the  value  and  use  of  opportunity  to  study,  and  you 
are  here  determined  to  make  the  most  of  it.  There 
looms  up  before  you  that  question  you  are  to  answer 
in  your  ordination  to  the  priesthood  :     "  Will  you 


THE  MAN   OF  GOD  55 

be  diligent  ...  in  reading  the  Holy  Scriptures, 
and  in  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
same  ?  "  There  is  not  only  the  wholesome  dread  of 
being  a  clerical  ignoramus,  but  there  is  the  positive 
hope  to  attain  the  power  and  the  pleasure  of  being 
well-informed  for  the  work's  sake.  Nothing  of  a 
smattering  or  a  shirking  student  enters  into  your 
ideal.  On  the  contrary,  all  that  earnest  and  con- 
scientious work  can  bring  you,  you  mean  to  get. 

To  be  a  man  of  influence  is  another  proper  ambi- 
tion. Not  to  be  a  mere  clerical  cipher,  whatever 
our  post.  Kailroads  have  a  way  when  they  put 
freight  cars  out  of  commission  and  turn  them  into 
side-track  usage  of  putting  a  naught  before  the  old 
number  of  the  car,  whatever  it  might  have  been. 
The  cipher  shows  that  its  numbering  on  the  main 
line  is  nil.  And  at  the  threshold  of  your  ministry 
you  say  to  yourself,  "  God  forbid  that  I  should  ever 
have  my  count  in  the  main  work  of  the  ministry 
fronted  with  a  cipher  !  Whether  in  that  which  is 
least  or  in  that  which  is  much  of  the  direct  work  of 
my  holy  calling,  be  it  mine  never  to  cease  my  labor, 
ray  care  and  diligence,  until  I  have  done  all  that 
lieth  in  me,  according  to  my  bounden  duty  to  be  so 
faithful  that  God  may  give  the  increase."  Only 
death  or  absolute  disability  should  stay  that  ambi- 
tion.    Only  such  ambition  can  be  proof  against 


56  APT   AND   MEET 

idling  away  or  secularizing  holy  vows,  or  lapsing 
into  the  condition  of  an  amateur  clergyman  when 
something  else  takes  first  place  in  the  life.  Pictures 
of  your  future  sphere,  where  in  some  way  that  will 
count  in  pastoral  efficiency,  in  pulpit  power,  in  leader- 
ship, in  teaching  the  truth,  in  winning  the  love  of 
your  people,  in  seeing  your  labor  tell,  in  turning 
the  hearts  of  the  disobedient  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
just,  in  sanctifying  whatever  gifts,  whatever  oppor- 
tunities may  furnish  you  zest,  all  these  afford  a 
stimulus  and  a  spirit  of  attack  which  the  Holy  Spirit 
will  bless  to  the  uttermost.  No  man,  who  long  be- 
forehand does  not  see  himself  astir  in  that  fond 
dreamland  parish  which  is  one  day  to  be  his,  is 
likely  to  be  very  much  astir  with  real  influence  in 
it  when  he  treads  the  solid  earth  of  his  field. 

To  be  a  man  of  the  finer  sense  is  a  further  trait 
for  a  candidate  for  the  ministry  to  covet  earnestly 
as  one  of  the  best  gifts.  To  eliminate  all  manner 
of  coarseness,  and  reach,  as  the  grace  of  God  will 
help  one  to  reach,  a  refinement  of  fibre  which  is  the 
mark,  not  only  of  the  gentleman,  but  of  that  gen- 
tleness in  Christ  which  St.  Paul  tells  us  must  be 
the  attitude  of  the  minister  of  Christ  unto  all  men : 
— here,  indeed,  is  a  very  marvel  of  transformation 
held  out  to  us ;  so  unpromising  to  most  of  us  as  we 
take  account  of  what  is  to  be  done  to  effect  any- 


THE  MAN   OF  GOD  57 

thing  like  it  in  our  own  disposition  and  character 
that  it  seems  almost  a  counsel  of  perfection.  We 
say  of  it :  "  It  is  too  wonderful  for  me,  I  cannot 
attain  unto  it."  It  means  absolute  punctiliousness 
in  all  the  little  amenities  of  life.  A  clergyman 
should  always  be  known  for  his  promptness  in  such 
little  matters  as  answering  notes  and  the  like ;  for 
his  thoughtfulness  in  deferring  when  possible  to 
the  wishes  and  convenience  of  others ;  for  his  sensi- 
tive consideration  for  others ;  for  his  scrupulous 
care  never  to  intrude  his  purely  personal  tastes  or 
habits  upon  others — far  less  into  his  ministrations 
to  others.  If  he  uses  tobacco,  for  example,  he 
should  never  be  guilty  of  that  which  is  sometimes 
simply  prohibitory  to  his  usefulness  in  a  sick-cham- 
ber, the  carrying  of  the  odor  of  it  in  his  clothes  in 
visiting,  and,  which  is  so  offensive  to  many  wor- 
shipers and  communicants,  making  the  chancel 
redolent  of  stale  smoke  as  he  goes  about  it 
when  he  officiates.  As  you  have  the  longing 
to  develop  this  finer  sense  you  will  determine 
with  yourselves  how  to  guard  against  every 
temptation  to  coarseness  in  speech,  in  manner,  in 
mind,  in  method,  in  bearing  towards  your  brethren 
in  the  ministry,  in  tastes  of  reading  and  recreation, 
and  to  resolve  upon  thoroughgoing  application  to 
the  breeding  of  Divine  grace. 


58  APT  AND   MEET 

But  all  these  and  other  ways  of  looking  forward 
to  ideals  are  subordinate  to  and  illuminated  by  that 
dominating  desire  to  be  the  man  of  God.  That 
blends  and  vitalizes  them  all.  Let  it  be  clearly  cut 
now.  Apply  yourself  and  your  prayer  to  its  tak- 
ing hold  of  you  as  a  veritable  "  one-idea  "  of  your 
future  character  and  work.  With  it  as  a  ruling 
idea  all  the  other  high  aspirations  will  fall  into 
their  proper  function  and  symmetry.  Every  one 
can  realize  it  as  God  will  give  him  grace.  The  at- 
mosphere of  this  Divinity  School  has  sent  out  and 
with  God's  help  will  send  out  men  braced  in  many 
other  ways  for  finding  the  true  joy  of  the  Ministry. 
The  school  prayer  has  been  and  will  be  realized 
that  they  may  go  out  "  with  an  awful  sense  of  the 
honor  and  danger  of  the  trust  to  which  they  are  to 
be  called  " ;  "  with  sound  minds  and  moderated  de- 
sires." But  these  qualifications  will  be  sadly 
defective  if,  with  them,  they  do  not  go  out  "  with  a 
spirit  of  holy  zeal  and  self-denial." 

In  subsequent  talks  to  you  I  hope  to  follow  up 
this  ideal  with  some  of  its  phases,  helps,  and  re- 
wards. But  be  clear-eyed  and  open-eyed  now  to  all 
the  inspiration,  all  the  enthusiasm  of  the  one  vision 
over  the  threshold  of  the  school,  over  the  threshold 
of  the  year.  Servants  of  the  God-man,  be  ye  seers 
of  the  Man  of  God. 


VIII 

THE  STEWAEDSHIP  OP  TIME-TIME 
FOE  DEVOTIOIsr 

We  are  glad  to  get  to  work  again.  If  I  at  all  know 
your  spirit,  I  believe  I  may  confidently  greet  you, 
as  I  do,  with  hearty  welcome  at  the  opening  of  a 
new  year  of  our  Divinity  School  life,  with  that 
sentiment.  Not  that  the  long  summer  interval  is 
meant  to  be,  or  has  been,  a  period  without  work. 
Allowing  for  some  wholesome  vacation,  I  take  for 
granted  that  you  have  faithfully  acted  upon  that 
principle  of  the  economy  we  study  to  attain  in  the 
Divinity  School  course,  which  assigns  the  summer- 
time of  cessation  from  routine  school  work  for 
courses  of  reading  to  fill  out  lecture-room  work,  or 
for  some  practical  experience  of  service  among  the 
people.  This  really  stands  for  that  self-schooling 
and  initiative  in  study  which  every  true  clergyman 
of  the  Church  finds  so  needful  in  his  ministry. 

But  we  come  together  now  eager  again  to  make 
the  most  of  our  Divinity  School  life.  And  dur- 
ing the  coming  year,  from  time  to  time,  I  am  hop- 
ing to  speak  to  you  as  a  Bishop  to  Candidates  for 

the  holy  ministry  as  well  as  dean  of  the  school.     I 

59 


60  APT  AND   MEET 

feel  that  I  have  some  exceptional  privileges  in 
meeting  you  in  this  chapel.  One  cannot  read  the 
ordination  vows,  the  ember  prayers  we  are  saying 
this  week,  or  the  canons  bearing  upon  the  relation 
of  a  Bishop  to  the  candidates,  without  being  im- 
pressed with  the  closeness  and  the  consequence  of 
that  relationship  in  the  conception  of  it  by  the 
Church.  It  is  a  relationship  which  neither  can  rel- 
egate to  a  third  party.  The  Bishop's  vow  to  be 
faithful  in  ordaining,  sending  or  laying  hands  upon 
others,  the  prayer  that  the  Bishop  may  lay  hands 
suddenly  on  no  man,  are  full  of  the  significance  of 
the  responsibility.  And  then  it  is  well  for  us  to 
recall  some  of  the  exact  terms  of  the  canon  con- 
cerning candidates,  not  forgetting  how  carefully 
the  Church  tries  to  guard  all  the  approaches  to  the 
reception  of  the  candidate  with  credentials  of 
character  and  studies.  Canon  3.  §  I.  (1)  The 
superintendence  of  all  candidates  for  Holy  Orders, 
both  as  to  their  daily  life  and  as  to  the  direction  of 
their  theological  studies,  pertains  to  the  Bishop  of 
the  Diocese  or  Missionary  District  to  which  they 
belong. 

(iii)  Every  candidate  shall  pursue  his  studies 
diligently  under  proper  direction ;  he  shall  not  in- 
dulge in  vain  or  trifling  conduct,  or  in  amusements 
unfavorable  to  godly  and  studious  habits  and  to  that 


TIME   FOR   DEVOTION  61 

good  report  which  becomes  a  person  preparing  for 
the  Holy  Ministry. 

§  III.  (1)  Every  candidate  for  Holy  Orders 
shall  report  himself  to  the  Ecclesiastical  Authority 
personally  or  by  letter,  four  times  a  year,  in  the 
Ember  weeks,  giving  account  of  his  manner  of  life 
and  progress  in  his  studies  ;  and  if  he  fail  to  make 
such  report  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Ecclesiastical 
Authority,  his  name  may  be  stricken  from  the  list 
of  Candidates. 

The  language  of  the  Canon  is  very  plain  and 
specific  in  fixing  a  supervision  "  both  as  to  their 
daily  life  and  as  to  the  direction  of  their  theolog- 
ical studies,"  as  a  duty  of  a  Bishop  to  a  candidate. 
Sometimes,  to  be  sure,  a  Bishop  finds  that  his  op- 
portunities for  doing  this,  beyond  indicating  in  a 
general  way  where  a  candidate  shall  study,  are 
limited  and  the  pressure  of  modern  episcopal  duty 
makes  it  hard  for  many  Bishops  to  come  into  the 
constant  touch  with  their  candidates  they  would 
wish.  But  circumstances  here  favor,  at  least  so  far 
as  my  episcopate  is  concerned,  opportunities  for  all 
these  in  a  measure  that  I  cannot  disregard  and  must 
in  conscience  attempt  to  meet  so  far  as  I  can  with 
God's  help.  And  now  I  would  bid  you  consider 
earnestly  the  matter  of  the  "  Stewardship  of  Time." 

With  the  taking  up  of  the  daily  Divinity  School 


62  APT   AND   MEET 

course  we  begin  to  "  go  by  the  clock  "  more  than  we 
have  been  when  by  ourselves.  Lectures  are 
scheduled,  hours  for  chapel  services  are  resumed, 
and  the  day  more  or  less  mapped  out.  Now,  it  is 
one  thing  to  drift  along  through  all  these  as  a  mere 
current  or  drag  of  class-room,  chapel  or  other  oc- 
cupations. It  is  quite  another  thing  to  feel  a  sense 
of  responsibility  for  each  dsiy  and  to  take  advan- 
tage of  these  helps  to  turn  it  to  account.  In  the  one 
case  accountability  for  our  time  rests  upon  us  very 
lightly.  In  the  other  case  a  profound  conviction  of 
stewardship,  of  having  every  day  entrusted  to  us 
that  we  may  improve  it,  deepens  within  us  as  a 
habit  of  mind  and  shapes  in  no  small  degree  our 
whole  ministerial  character.  In  the  one  case  an 
idle  or  a  desultory  or  a  frittered-away  ministry 
may  result.  In  the  other  conscience  grows  more 
and  more  sensitive  to  time  thrown  away,  and  the 
clergyman,  as  he  thinks  it  over,  is  in  something  the 
frame  of  mind  that  even  a  high-minded  heathen 
once  found  himself  when  he  said,  "  I  have  lost  a 
day,  I  have  not  done  a  single  good  deed."  And 
here  you  are  fixing  many  of  such  habits  once  for  all. 
There  are  different  parts  of  this  stewardship  of 
time  to  be  considered.  Leaving  for  later  treatment 
such  topics  as  a  time  for  work,  for  recreation,  etc., 
the  only  one  to  which  I  shall  specifically  refer  at 


TIME   FOR  DEVOTION  63 

this  time  is  faithfulness  in  JSnding  time  for  devo- 
tion. To  some  extent  that  faithfulness  is  put  to 
the  test  by  the  chapel  services,  ordered  as  they  are 
by  the  Prayer  Book  provision  for  every  day.  It 
will  be  a  question  of  carefulness  or  carelessness,  of 
resoluteness  or  irresoluteness,  of  easy-going  self- 
favoring  or  of  high,  prompt  purpose.  And  even  if 
we  successfully  overcome  that  inertness  which  is  so 
tempting  to  absenteeism  from  early  celebrations  or 
afternoon  services,  there  is  the  further  present- 
mindedness  to  be  cultivated  in  the  services  them- 
selves, the  schooling  to  keep  our  thoughts  on  what 
we  are  doing  or  saying,  which  is  so  important  a  mat- 
ter for  us  to  learn  here,  if  we  would  acquire  the 
fixed  habit  for  our  ministry.  And  I  need  scarcely 
deprecate  the  temptation  which  sometimes  comes 
even  to  a  divinity  student  to  omit  chapel  in  order 
to  find  time  for  study  which  has  been  crowded  out 
of  study  time.  A  sensitive  stewardship  over  time 
for  our  public  devotion  will  easily  resist  any  such 
temptation  as  that,  and  realize  that  in  the  real  char- 
acter building  of  the  Divinity  School  the  chapel 
devotions  take  by  no  means  the  least  part. 

But  who  can  speak  too  strongly  of  the  vital  im- 
portance of  realizing  how  much  the  time  spent  in 
the  private  devotions  is  to  tell  upon  the  daily  life 
and  work  !    Only  your  room  and  God  can  keep  the 


64  APT  AND   MEET 

record  of  that.    But  I  will  venture  to  give  some 
hints  which  you  may  find  helpful : 

I.  Have  some  good  book  of  prayer — some  good 
book  with  the  true  spirit  of  the  Church,  like 
"  Horaa  Sacrae,"  or  Bishop  Andrewes'  "  Devotions," 
or  Jeremy  Taylor's  prayers  in  "  Holy  Living  and 
Dying."  Use  this  work  to  absorb  into  your  prayers 
wider  interest  of  prayer  and  to  cultivate  a  happy 
phraseology  of  prayer.  It  will  also  help  you  to 
continuous  prayer  minimizing  distractions.  This 
need  not  be  at  all  a  substitute  for  your  own  pour- 
ing out  of  heart  in  your  own  words ;  it  will  only 
supply  stimulus  to  it  and  supplement  it.  The  fervor 
of  your  own  heart  will  soon  fuse  any  relics  of 
archaism  in  the  older  prayers,  and  even  their 
Scripturalism  and  quaintness  will  last  infinitely  bet- 
ter than  the  mere  confectionery  of  many  modern 
devotional  manuals. 

II.  Bead  with  habitual  and  intelligent  devotional 
instinct  some  of  the  Word  of  God.  Do  not  confuse 
your  lectures  and  lessons  upon  the  truth  with  your 
own  devotional  use  of  it.  Get  all  you  can  out  of 
the  glow  of  truth  in  your  own  experience,  morning 
and  night.     It  will  one  day  vitalize  your  sermons. 

III.  Always,  if  possible,  have  some  biography 
of  a  holy  man  on  your  reading-desk,  varying  it  now 
and  then  with  the  reading  of  a  spiritual  sermon  for 


TIME  FOR  DEVOTION  65 

your  soul's  health.  This  is  one  of  the  best  possible 
helps  to  spiritual  depth  and  earnestness,  and  will 
create  hunger  most  wholesome  for  more  of  the  same 
sort  of  spiritual  food. 

IV.  Try  one  very  Lord's  day  to  find,  more  than 
on  other  days,  the  refreshment  of  soul  that  comes 
from  more  prayer  and  more  holy  reading.  This 
will  get  to  be  a  part  of  the  conscience  for  the  Sun- 
day. The  stewardship  of  the  day  will  not  seem  com- 
plete without  it. 

V.  Withal  pray  constantly  for  the  Holy  Spirit. 
"Ye  have  need  to  pray  earnestly  for  His  Holy 
Spirit,"  says  the  ordinal.  So  the  sense  of  steward- 
ship for  devotional  time  week-day  and  Sunday  will 
bless  and  sweeten  all  the  other  occupations,  and  one 
of  the  prof oundest  convictions  of  your  lives,  as  year 
follows  year,  will  be  that  the  effectual,  fervent 
prayer  of  a  righteous  man  availeth  much.  And 
you  will  have  sounded  a  joy  deep  and  rare  in  your 
whole  ministry. 


IX 

THE  STEWAEDSmP  OF  TIME— EIGHT  USE 
OF   EETIEEMEITT 

In  preceding  pages  I  tried  to  impress  upon  you 
how  a  proper  sense  of  our  stewardship  of  time 
fixes  the  responsibility  of  setting  apart  time  for 
devotion.  Let  us  now  follow  that  responsibility  a 
little  further.  And  a  caution  constantly  confront- 
ing me  in  what  I  say,  and,  I  believe,  needful  for  you 
in  everything  pertaining  to  the  devotional  life,  is  to 
avoid  unreality,  to  be  our  genuine  selves,  to  have  no 
spiritual  stiltedness  or  smug  professionalism,  to 
wear  no  mask  to  ourselves,  not  to  give  out — like  a 
phonograph  with  its  metallic  artificiality — what 
some  one  else  has  talked  into  us.  Our  devotional 
life  must  first  of  all  be  spontaneous  and  our  very 
own. 

There  is  a  phrase  which  St.  John  (6 :  15)  gives  us 
of  Our  Lord  which  is  full  of  suggestiveness  here, — 
"  Himself  alone."  It  was  when  the  Master,  after 
He  had  fed  the  five  thousand,  departed  into  a  moun- 
tain "  Himself  alone."  St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark 
both  tell  us  He  took  the  retirement  for  prayer. 

66 


RIGHT   USE  OF  RETIREMENT  67 

"  He  went  up  into  a  mountain  apart  to  pray." 
"  He  departed  into  a  mountain  to  pray." 

This  loneliness,  this  being  by  Himself,  was,  be  it 
distinctly  noted,  a  matter  of  His  own  purpose  and 
choice.  It  was,  in  a  sense,  of  His  own  deliberate 
making.  It  stands  out  in  that  way  as  over  and 
above  the  essential  loneliness  of  humanity  which 
He  exhibited  in  its  prof oundest  and  most  mysterious 
phase.  He  was  in  one  sense  the  loneliest  man  that 
ever  lived.  Alone  He  trod  the  winepress ;  alone 
He  was  when  they  all  forsook  Him  and  fled  ;  alone 
in  Gethsemane,  and  alone  on  the  Cross,  with  that 
awful  loneliness  which  uttered  the  cry :  "  My  God, 
My  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken  Me  ?  "  That  was 
laid  upon  Him  and  was  part  of  the  deep  mystery 
of  His  redemptive  work.  No  human  being  ever 
had  a  lot  involving  loneliness  like  unto  His  loneli- 
ness. 

And  yet,  superadded  to  this  inherent  and  unique 
sense  of  being  alone,  the  Son  of  God  made  it  a 
habit,  it  would  seem,  to  seek  opportunity  to  be  by 
Himself,  to  go  apart  from  the  multitude  into  still- 
ness and  solitude,  that  He  might  refresh  His  own 
spirit  of  devotion.  He  made  it  a  point  of  con- 
science to  make  time  for  this.  It  was  part  of  the 
discipline  of  His  perfect  character.  It  communi- 
cated part  of  the  charm  of  His  beauty  of  holiness. 


68  APT  AND   MEET 

It,  we  may  well  believe,  had  to  do  with  the  secret 
of  His  poise  and  strength  in  every  crisis  and  in 
every  constancy  of  His  human  life. 

Now  an  honest  sense  of  vocation  to  that  ministry 
which  comes  from  Him,  means  many  a  lonely  hour 
that  a  true-hearted  man  cannot  escape  if  he  would. 
And  do  not  think  some  strange  thing  has  happened 
unto  you  if  you  have  each  one  his  share  of  this. 
To  feel  inwardly  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  take 
upon  you  this  Office  and  Ministration  throws  each 
upon  himself  in  the  very  individualizing  of  such  a 
conviction  and  plan  of  life.  You  seem  to  yourself 
picked  out  and,  in  a  measure,  isolated  from  others. 
And  there  are  experiences,  wrestlings  with  self, 
with  circumstances,  with  burdens  to  be  borne,  with 
poor  health,  with  dejection  and  disappointments 
and  limitations,  which  are  especially  apt  to  beset 
the  preparatory  years  of  a  candidate  for  Holy  Or- 
ders. It  is  simply  part  of  the  fitting  of  self  into 
sphere.  A  man  is  all  the  better  for  it  when  he 
comes  up  to  his  ordination.  It  all  has  to  do  with 
the  making  of  the  true  priest.  And  the  sooner  one 
understands  this,  and  takes  it  as  it  comes,  and  tries 
to  turn  it  to  good  account  in  character  building,  the 
sooner  he  finds  it  the  safeguard  against  allowing  it 
to  become  misdirected  into  morbid  or  cheerless 
channels.    These    phases    of    loneliness,    through 


EIGHT   USE   OF   RETIREMENT  69 

which  a  divinity  student  almost  always  passes,  in 
their  right  use  and  discipline  tell  upon  all  his  after 
usefulness,  and  enable  him,  as  we  say,  to  hold  him- 
self better  in  hand.  But  that  loneliness  comes  any- 
way. It  is  not  a  matter  of  our  own  planning  and 
devising.  Our  own  will  and  choice  have  very  little 
to  do  with  it.  We  are  born  unto  it  as  the  sparks 
fly  upward.  We  have  to  take  all  that  into  account 
before  we  reach  the  question  of  an  initiative  in 
making  retirement  for  ourselves  after  the  manner 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

And,  be  careful  to  mark,  it  is  such  voluntary 
seizing  of  time  and  opportunity  to  be  by  ourselves 
that  we  are  now  especially  advising.  This  is  not 
something  that  will  take  care  of  itself,  like  a  meal 
hour  or  a  chapel  service.  The  individual  must 
rigidly  and  persistently  put  method  into  it  himself, 
or  it  will  not  be  attended  to.  There  are  few  things, 
indeed,  more  wasteful  and  slothful  with  "  the  day's 
work  "  of  a  divinity  student  than  to  have  no  clock- 
strokes  which  mean  anything  to  him  other  than 
those  comparatively  few  hours  noted  on  the  bulle- 
tin-board for  the  assembling  for  various  purposes. 

My  counsel  then  is  that  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  term  each  one  should  fix  for  himself  some 
periods  of  retirement,  and  then  should  be  careful  to 
make  right  and   blessed   use  of  that  retirement. 


70  APT   AND   MEET 

That  will  give  something  of  a  wholesome  cloistered 
life  to  the  Divinity  School  body  as  a  whole,  with- 
out at  all  depriving  it  of  that  balancing  influence, 
so  necessary,  of  family  life  with  each  other,  and 
contact  with  the  world  in  which  you  are  to  minis- 
ter. It  is  not  at  all  an  ascetic  or  a  cult  ideal.  It 
is  only  to  make  due  and  intelligent  provision  all 
along,  through  the  course,  for  the  sweet  suasion  of 
God's  Holy  Spirit,  as  it  searches,  in  quiet  and  self- 
communing,  the  deep  things  of  man.  Map  out  the 
time,  then,  for  it  conscientiously. 

And  among  many  ways  of  making  a  right  use  of 
such  systematic  retirement,  I  would  suggest  the 
following : 

1.  Always  have  ready  at  hand  some  good  devo- 
tional reading.  On  the  shelves  of  the  library  there 
are  many  volumes  of  stimulating  biography  and 
works  concerned  with  the  devotional  life  of  the 
priest,  to  say  nothing  of  sermons  like  those  of  Lid- 
don  or  Newman.  Ordination  addresses  like  those 
of  Bishop  Wilberforce  can  be  profitably  read  again 
and  again.  Contemporary  book  lists  supply  the 
titles  of  others  in  abundance.  Any  oflScer  of  the 
school  will,  I  am  sure,  readily  advise  as  to  helpful 
reading,  and  the  books  placed  in  your  hands  at  the 
beginning  of  your  course  will,  I  trust,  be  found 
bracing  and  suggestive. 


RIGHT   USE   OF   RETIREMENT  71 

2.  Prayer  and  intercession,  widening  and  deep- 
ening as  life  widens  and  deepens,  must  constitute  in 
our  hours  of  retirement,  as  it  did  with  the  Master, 
a  large  part  of  the  occupation.  Where,  if  not  here, 
are  you  ever  to  learn  to  have  a  life  of  prayer,  and 
where  can  you  ever  hope  for  a  blessing  upon  your 
ministry  without  it  ? 

3.  Preparation  for  the  Holy  Communion  must 
periodically  have  its  distinct  place  in  this  self-en- 
forced retirement.  No  early  celebration  should  be 
neglected  by  the  one  aiming  at  the  highest  standard 
of  spiritual  life,  and  to  have  some  set  time  every 
week  to  inventory  the  life  and  appreciate  its  short- 
comings, and  evoke  its  best  aspirations  and  assimi- 
late its  rich  sacramental  nourishment,  this  is  to  taste 
some  of  the  deepest  peace  of  habitual  retirement 
and  to  find  the  meaning  of  Non  passihus^  sedpreci- 
husy  itur  ad  Deum,  or,  to  take  the  English  render- 
ing in  Bishop  Andrewes'  "  Preces  Privatae,"  "  It  is 
not  by  paces,  but  by  prayers  that  God  is  come  at." 

Let  me  then  bid  you  begin  your  new  term  with 
some  well  chosen  schedule  for  the  retirement  which 
has  so  much  to  do  with  all  piety,  and  with  making 
you  men  really  consecrated  to  your  high  calling ; 
and  which  has  been  so  largely  instrumental  in  shap- 
ing the  best  priestly  holiness  in  the  Catholic  Church. 


X 

GOOD  BODILY  TEIM 

St.  Paul,  in  instructing  Timothy,  puts  particular 
stress  upon  the  characteristics  of  a  man  of  God  as 
one  who  is  to  be  "  complete,  furnished  completely 
unto  every  good  work."  And  there  is  in  the 
world  translated  "complete"  a  distinct  sug- 
gestion of  complete  fitness  for  the  work.  It 
covers  much  the  same  ground  as  the  "apt  and 
meet"  of  the  challenge  in  the  Ordination  Office. 
Following,  then,  the  general  theme,  "The  Man 
of  God,"  let  us  continue  it,  to  see  one  im- 
portant mark  of  a  man  of  God.  He  is  to  be  well 
rounded,  symmetrical,  developing  healthfully  on 
all  lines,  not  a  one-sided  man  in  any  way.  And 
so  let  us  not  miss  the  decided  bearing  this  has 
upon  bodily  hygiene  itself.  That  alone  will  be 
enough  to  attempt  to  speak  of  at  this  time,  leav- 
ing other  lines  of  the  well-balanced  worker  for 
future  treatment. 

We  must  not  make  the  mistake,  either,  of  sup- 
posing that  robust  health  is  the  most  important 
thing  for  the  clergyman,  or  that  poor  health  is  a 

72 


GOOD   BODILY  TRIM  73 

sure  doom  of  success  in  the  ministry.  From 
St.  Paul  with  his  "thorn  in  the  flesh"  and  St. 
Timothy  with  his  "  often  infirmities,"  down  through 
the  centuries,  there  are  many  instances  where  the 
very  chastening  and  limitations  of  sickness  and 
ability  to  do  only  so  much  physically  have  been 
turned  to  the  greatest  blessedness  in  the  Master's 
service.  And  of  more  than  one  have  I  known  who 
had  felt  that  feeble  health  in  the  earlier  years  of 
their  ministry  had  numbered  their  days,  and  at 
times  scarcely  dared  to  plan  a  year  ahead,  who, 
nevertheless,  found  their  ministries  prolonged  to 
even  the  fourscore  years  of  their  lives.  So  that 
good  physical  vigor  and  good  length  of  days  in  the 
ministry  are  by  no  means  always  found  together, 
nor  can  any  one  reason  from  ill  health  in  itself  to 
ill  result  for  his  career.  We  have  but  to  recall  the 
cases  of  a  Darwin  or  a  Spencer  in  scientific  activities, 
or  of  Green,  the  historian,  to  see  the  testimony  to 
this  from  other  fields.  And  physical  chastening 
and  pain  have  enriched  the  devotional  literature  of 
the  ages. 

The  real  concern  must  be  to  make  the  most  of 
what  we  have ;  if  indifferent  health,  to  husband  it 
and  learn  how  to  use  it  to  the  best  advantage ;  if 
of  the  ruddy  and  robust  kind,  to  see  to  it  that  we 
do  not  neglect  it  nor  impair  it.    A  man  may  have 


74  APT   AND   MEET 

comparatively  few  days  when  he  can  really  say  he 
feels  well,  and  yet,  by  economizing  his  strength  and 
time,  may  be  spared  to  accomplish  much.  Another 
may  have  the  vitality  and  strength  of  an  ox  and 
practically  throw  it  all  away.  The  battle  is  not  to 
the  strong  alone. 

Now,  how  are  the  candidates  for  Holy  Orders 
to  make  this  critical  dealing  with  the  body  a  matter 
of  wholesome  intelligence  and  habit?  Of  course, 
as  Christians  we  have  the  aim  to  keep  "  the  body 
under,"  that  our  flesh  being  subdued  to  the  Spirit 
we  may  ever  obey  the  "  godly  motions  "  ;  we  have 
the  ideal  of  purity,  that  the  body  is  the  temple  of 
the  Holy  Spirit ;  we  have  the  ideal  of  destiny,  that 
the  body  is  to  be  changed  and  made  like  unto  His 
own  glorious  body ;  and  we  have  the  Church's  pre- 
scription of  fasting  and  discipline  as  a  spiritual 
exercise.  All  of  these  things  our  Divinity  School 
life  should  read  most  deeply  into  our  hearts  and 
conduct  if  we  are  at  all  to  teach  the  truth  of  them 
to  others.  "  I  beseech  you  therefore,  brethren,  by 
the  mercies  of  God,"  says  St.  Paul,  "  to  present 
your  bodies  a  living  sacrifice,  holy,  acceptable  to 
God,  which  is  your  spiritual  service." 

Divinity  students  are  not  exempt  from  the  char- 
acteristics of  other  young  men,  and  like  them  they 
are  sometimes  inclined  to  try  wild  experiments  with 


GOOD   BODILY   TRIM  75 

f  oodj  exercise,  and  medicine.  Scares  about  dyspepsia 
and  a  hundred  other  ailments  are  followed  by  alter- 
nations of  starving  and  stuflBlng,  of  violent  muscular 
exertion  in  some  new  calisthenic,  and  then  of  lassi- 
tude ;  of  dosing  and  then  discarding  all  prescrip- 
tion ;  of  reckless  defiance  of  the  rules  of  health,  and 
then  of  bunching  them  all  into  "  twenty  minutes." 
Or,  perhaps,  crude  ascetic  ideals  appeal  to  one,  and 
he  is  likely  to  fall  into  a  pseudo-asceticism,  and  try 
to  get  himself  as  much  out  of  condition  as  possible. 
Eeal  asceticism  has,  no  doubt,  its  place,  but  amateur 
asceticism  of  this  sort  is  apt  to  lead  nowhere,  and 
to  be  of  short  duration,  and  while  it  lasts  not  al- 
together convincing  as  an  ideal  to  sweetness  of  dis- 
position to  one's  companions.  We  read  of  mediaBval 
monks  who  could  bear  the  chill  of  the  fireless  dormi- 
tory and  wind-swept  cloister  the  better  because  the 
grimy  and  unwashed  cuticle  kept  out  the  cold  better 
than  the  softer  and  cleaner  conditions  of  these  latter 
days.  But  we  find  in  contrast  with  that,  counsels 
more  timely  for  our  century  in  such  a  writer  as  the 
Eoman  Catholic  rector  of  a  New  York  parish,  the 
Eev.  Dr.  Wm.  Talbot  Smith,  who,  in  his  book  "  On 
the  Training  of  the  Priest,"  pleads  for  another  ideal 
in  the  American  Roman  seminaries,  as  follows: 
"At  present  too  large  a  number  of  the  young 
priests  enter  upon  parish  work  emaciated,   weak, 


76  APT   AND   MEET 

bloodless,  spend  years  in  recovering  from  injuries 
inflicted  by  seminary  training,  grow  fat  and  shape- 
less in  body  before  their  youth  is  passed,  and  often 
grow  mentally  morbid  and  drop  into  the  grave  be- 
tween fifty  and  sixty,  after  a  physically  irregular 
and  uncomfortable  life."  He  urges  a  training  in 
the  Roman  seminaries  which  will  secure  "a  fine 
vitality,  sound  health,  a  graceful  body  and  a  grace- 
ful carriage,  when  the  constitution  is  good  at  the 
beginning  "  ;  in  the  case  of  the  feeble  or  deficient, 
a  training  which  may  "  add  to  the  vigor  and  years 
and  usefulness  of  the  student."  And  he  contrasts 
the  meal  hour,  which  ought  to  be  the  "grand 
social  hour  of  the  day,"  with  "  the  mental  irrita- 
tion of  the  student  as  he  sits  before  his  awful  mess, 
and  listens  in  dumb  pain  to  the  reader  in  the  pulpit 
describing  the  mortification  of  the  saints."  (Pp. 
74,  80,  81.) 

Seminary  life  does  call  for  decided  discipline  of 
the  body  in  a  sensible  health  regime.  One  can  put 
all  the  resolution  of  an  ascetic,  or  the  determination 
to  conquer  a  liver,  or  a  digestion,  into  fixing  the 
cold  bath  habit  in  the  morning.  Of  course,  there 
must  be  care,  and,  in  infirm  health,  medical  counsel- 
ing about  that ; — and  indeed  a  good  physician  friend 
will  be  found  timely  in  the  whole  matter  of  a  sane 
regime — but  any  Divinity  School  which  can  send  the 


GOOD   BODILY   TRIM  77 

greater  part  of  its  men  to  their  daily  work  with  the 
circulation  and  glow  and  cleanliness  of  the  plunge, 
or  the  shower,  or  the  sponge,  is,  I  believe,  contribu- 
ting one  of  the  most  important  points  of  all  to  the 
good  physical  trim  for  that  future  field,  and  so,  to 
those  sane  and  not  anaemic  outlooks  upon  life  and 
upon  duty  the  world  so  much  needs.  There  may 
be  more  real  virtue  in  a  good  morning  tub  than  in 
i  a  sleepy  OflBice  recital.  But  after  the  tub  the  Office 
will  not  be  sleepy.  And  the  clergyman's  life  will 
ever  bear  the  marks  of  such  a  habit,  as  it  dispels 
"  mulligrubs,"  and  finds  elasticity  of  sinew  and  of 
spirit.  The  red  glow  from  the  morning  splash  will 
drive  off  many  a  blue  Monday. 

Then,  of  course,  good  food  and  good,  regular, 
suitable  exercise  must  have  their  due  attention. 
No  one  can  afford  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  meal- 
times, or  with  routine  sleep  and  recreation,  any 
more  than  he  can  with  his  Jiours  of  faithful  work. 
Owlish  hours  for  study  sometimes  seem  like  over- 
work, when  they  mark  only  underthrift  of  time. 
Tired  feeling  all  the  while  may  only  come  from 
nonsensical  nerve-wear,  or  inhabitual  habits.  The 
penalty  is  sure  to  follow,  sooner  or  later.  Indi- 
gestion, irritability,  morbid  views  of  things,  depres- 
sion and  all  that  class  of  clerical  crankiness,  how 
they  weaken  a  man's  usefulness  and  belittle  him  in 


78  APT   AND   MEET 

the  eyes  of  his  people  !  And  how  often  they  could 
be  avoided  or  minimized  if  in  the  Divinity  School 
there  were  more  of  a  conscience  to  fix  right  habits 
of  care  as  to  these  matters  of  food  and  rest  and 
recreation.  Every  Divinity  School  dining-room 
ought  to  be  a  kind  of  silent  lecture-room  in  itself. 
Walks  and  tennis-courts  and  gymnasiums  have  a 
place  most  congenial  for  conscience. 

It  will  come  to  pass,  if  these  considerations  pre- 
vail with  us,  that  we  shall  be  learning  what  the 
man  of  God  should  not  be  with  reference  to  his 
body  in  the  very  best  manner  possible ;  that  is,  by 
trying  to  practice  what  he  should  be.  There  is  no 
better  way  to  conquer  sloth  and  gluttony  and  other 
sins,  down  to  the  grosser  temptations.  The  ex- 
hilaration of  the  morning  bath  will  drive  away 
laziness  and  late  rising  and  slipshod  personal  habits 
of  dress  or  daily  task,  and  many  another  shortcom- 
ing that  subtracts  so  much  from  the  count  of  the 
man  in  the  "  day's  work "  of  the  after  life. 
Kegularity  and  prudence  in  the  other  matters  I  have 
referred  to  will  tend  to  prolong  the  days  and 
economize  the  strength  and  develop  the  worth  of 
the  whole  ministry — which  at  best  will  be  far  too 
short  for  its  uplifting  vision.  And,  like  Wilfrid  of 
old,  it  may  be  ours  to  find  something  of  the 
athletic    body    and    unclouded    cheerfulness    and 


GOOD   BODILY   TRIM  79 

blessed  mind  that  are  so  closely  and  mysteriously- 
akin  because  they  have  so  much  to  do  with  the 
making  of  an  all-around  manhood  and  an  all-around 
ministry. 


XI 

DAEK  SPEECH  UPON  THE  HAEP 

By  no  means  the  least  knowledge  to  be  attained 
in  a  wholesome  Divinity  School  course  is  the 
knowledge  of  self.  And  the  benefit  each  one  gets 
from  this  part  of  the  course  depends  a  good  deal  on 
his  own  initiative  and  care.  It  is  one  of  the  easiest 
parts  to  slur.  It  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  diflSi- 
cult  parts  to  master.  One  may  round  out  all  the 
routine  studies  with  a  brilliant  examination  and  still 
be  a  comparative  ignoramus  about  himself.  An- 
other may  be  all  along  taxed  with  self-struggle 
to  his  soul's  health  without  being  at  all  disturbed 
about  his  books  and  lectures.  The  latter  perhaps  is 
the  more  ordinary  experience  as  it  is  the  more  blessed 
way. 

Now  the  "  dark  speech  "  of  the  Psalmist  in  the 
Forty-ninth  Psalm  is  an  apt  phrase  for  voicings  in 
our  being  that  we  have  to  learn  to  interpret  to  our- 
selves. We  know  better  that  they  exist  than  what 
they  say.  Their  darkness  partakes  of  mystery. 
They  come  up  out  of  our  subconsciousness.  There 
are  clear  sounds  in  the  sensitive  whispering  gallery 

80 


DARK   SPEECH   UPON   THE   HARP  81 

of  the  soul,  but  the  language  needs  translation. 
They  indicate  tongues,  but  we  are  in  the  room  of 
the  unlearned.  God's  word  in  the  original  Hebrew 
of  the  Old  Testament  or  in  the  subtle  Greek  of  the 
I  New  does  not  more  invitingly  call  for  intelligent 
translation  than  these  unknown  tongues  of  our 
deepened  life  and  character.  The  most  jarring  dis- 
cords of  life  come  when  these  dark  speeches  are 
unheeded,  or  misdirected  or  harshened.  The  pro- 
foundest  harmonies  of  life  are  found  when  they  are 
set  to  their  proper  music,  and  so  the  Psalmist 
touches  upon  real  philosophy  of  the  higher  life 
when  he  is  inspired  to  put  it  in  just  the  way  he 
does,  "I  will  show  my  dark  speech  upon  the 
harp."  The  beat,  the  rhythm,  and  the  play  of  ex- 
pression and  the  spirit-stirring  effect  of  the  harp 
felicitously  suggest  the  thought  of  that  one  who,  in 
the  phrase  of  "  In  Memoriam,"  "  beat  his  music 
out."  And  we  recall  here  that  quoted  from 
Joubert  in  a  letter  of  the  late  Sir  George  Grove — 
"  the  lyre  is  a  winged  instrument  and  must  trans- 
port." 

There  is  no  more  timely  application  of  the  prayer 
"  Lighten  our  darkness  "  in  these  Divinity  School 
years  than  to  this  darkness  of  speech  that  comes 
out  of  our  innermost  searchings.  And  nothing  will 
leave    sweeter  memories  of    these  years  if    God 


82  APT  ANB   MEET 

makes  this  darkness  to  be  light.  Take  the  very 
yoice  of  the  vocation  itself.  You  have  already 
thought  you  heard  that  speaking  to  you.  That  is 
the  reason  you  are  here.  You  have  had  it  speaking 
to  you  in  a  trust  you  are  to  affirm  in  the  solemn 
hour  of  your  ordination  that  you  are  inwardly 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  take  upon  the  holy 
oflSce  and  ministration  of  a  deacon  to  serve  God  for 
the  promoting  of  His  glory,  and  the  edifying  of  His 
people.  That  blessed  light  has  been  thrown  full 
into  your  heart  recesses.  You  have  felt  both  its 
warmth  and  its  illumination  of  a  life  purpose. 

But  count  it  not  as  though  some  strange  thing 
had  happened  unto  you  if  the  speech  about  vocation 
sometimes  seems  dark — dark  in  the  sense  that  there 
come  misgivings,  that  it  grows  faint,  that  it  is  hard 
to  distinguish  in  a  din  of  other  voices,  that  it  does 
not  seem  to  speak  so  directly  from  the  heart,  that 
its  accents  somehow  do  not  seem  as  pleasing  as  we 
thought.  The  thickest  darkness  of  human  life 
sometimes  broods  over  questionings  about  mistakes 
of  a  lifetime.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  amid 
all  the  self-scrutinies  which  ply  the  sober-minded 
candidate  for  Holy  Orders  the  main  question  is  now 
.and  then  brought  under  review.  So  long  as  one  is 
careful  not  to  allow  such  introspection  to  become 
morbid,  the  mere  fact  that  these  self-communings 


DAEK   SPEECH   UPON   THE   HARP  83 

come  need  not  in  itself  disturb  him.  They  are  by 
no  means  uncommon  to  earnest  men.  They  come 
and  go.  They,  in  t)ne  form  or  another,  enter  into 
the  experience  of  the  Candidate  and  the  Veteran. 
Under  the  spell  of  a  great  sorrow  the  late  Presiding 
Bishop,  Dr.  Clark,  is  said  to  have  felt  a  sinking  of 
heart  about  the  ministry  after  he  had  served  in  it 
nearly  fifty  years,  though  he  soon  recovered  and 
realized,  as  had  those  who  knew  him  best,  its  great 
blessing  and  strength.  So  that  almost  on  the  eve 
of  his  departure  he  could  write : 

"I  see  the  far-off  shadowy  realm 
And  thither  turn  the  trembling  helm. 

"  The  distant  gleams  of  silver  light 
Believe  the  darkness  of  the  night." 

One  other  kind  of  "  dark  speech  "  is  apt  to  puzzle 
the  ingenuous  candidate  and  give  him  thoughtful, 
not  to  say  anxious,  hours.  It  is  the  spectre-like 
speech  of  doubt.  It  is  a  species  of  tempting  in  the 
sense  of  testing.  Temptation  of  all  kinds,  especially 
of  the  grosser  kind,  is  traceable  down  into  the  dread 
mystery  of  evil,  and  out  of  that  come  many  whis- 
perings of  which  we  say  we  do  not  know  what  to 
.make  of  them.  But  what  I  have  now  particularly 
in  mind  as  we  open  the  year's  curriculum  anew  are 


84  APT   AND   MEET 

those  insinuating  challenges  which  seem  to  meet  us 
in  the  dark  as  our  mind  enters  into  truths  about 
which  our  text-books,  and  lectures,  and  general  Di- 
vinity School  atmosphere  treat.  It  is  not  that  we 
do  not  want  to  avoid  these  challenges.  Indeed 
,  they  are  positively  unwelcome.  We  are  sure  of 
that.  But  such  voices  will  speak  and  confront  us 
with  dark,  unintelligible,  haunting  speech.  And 
sometimes  it  all  makes  us  uneasy. 

Now  what  bearing  upon  this  has  that  instinct  of 
the  Psalmist,  "  I  will  show  my  dark  speech  upon  the 
harp  "  ?  It  seems  to  me  to  mean  that  he  will  play 
out  as  a  kind  of  harp  speech,  what  he  cannot  express 
in  words.  The  harp  will  interpret  where  language 
fails.  Explanation,  analysis,  definition,  word-mak- 
ing will  not  dispell  the  darkness.  Turning  the 
speech  into  the  harmonies  of  the  skilled  player's 
touch  will.  In  other  words,  the  Divinity  student 
with  his  dark  speech,  of  whatever  sort  it  may  be,  as 
it  comes  to  him  in  the  retirement  and  world  of  the 
inner  man,  can,  I  believe,  best  find  the  music  for  it 
which  will  bring  him  peace  and  an  ever-deepening 
sense  of  its  meaning  by  making  the  routine  of  study, 
together  with  a  well-filled  rule  of  spiritual  life,  the 
stringed  instrument  to  which  he  gives  his  best  pow- 
ers and  his  application  as  week  follows  week  in  the 
ongoing  of  the  School  life.     It  is  perhaps  another 


DARK   SPEECH   UPON   THE   HARP  85 

way  of  applying  the  old  maxim,  "  solvitur  ambu- 
lando,"— or  better  still,  the  Master's  precept  to 
St.  Thomas,  when  in  reply  to  his  dark  speech,  the 
utterance  from  out  of  the  honest  bewilderment  of 
his  soul,  "  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  Thou  goest, 
and  how  can  we  know  the  way  ?  "  Jesus  saith  unto 
him,  "  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life."  The 
purport  of  the  answer  was  that  in  Christ  was  the 
unfolding  and  peace  in  all  the  mystery  of  life.  It 
was  a  very  different  thing  from  trying  to  clear  up 
in  the  mind  of  the  saint  the  thousand  pressing  and 
practical  difficulties  about  the  "  via  dolorosa,"  or  the 
visit  to  the  spirits  in  prison,  or  the  gates  opening 
for  the  King  of  glory  to  enter  in.  The  Master  did 
not  all  at  once  make  clear  the  way  to  St.  Thomas, 
but,  as  it  were,  bade  him  to  rest  all  such  question- 
ings with  Him,  with  the  implied  promise  that  he 
should  find  peace  for  his  soul.  And  so  with  you, 
who,  as  the  years  here  slip  by,  are  so  soon  to  reach 
the  sending  to  your  work  for  that  same  Master. 
Your  dark  speech,  in  all  the  awakening  to  new 
vistas  of  theological  truth  and  the  history  of  the 
Church  of  God  and  the  worship  of  the  ages,  and  to 
the  revelation  in  the  Word  of  God,  will  find  its  true 
harp  harmonies.  All  human  discords  become  con- 
cord in  Christ.  To  see  further  and  further  into  it 
all,  to  learn  to  cast  the  care  as  you  go  along  fondly 


86  APT   AND   MEET 

on  Him  who  is  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life,  to 
use  unremittingly  private  devotion  and  these  chapel 
services  and  your  regular  devotional  and  missionary 
meetings,  and  the  scrupulous  fidelity  to  every  daily 
task,  to  appropriate  to  yourselves  that  precious  as- 
surance that  He  will  become  to  you  your  personal 
Way,  your  Truth,  your  Life, — this  is  to  make  music 
of  Life  out  of  its  mystery.  The  text  we  chose  at 
the  beginning  of  our  Church  Divinity  School  life  to 
express  the  genius  of  the  training  we  aim  at  was 
this  very  one — "  I  am  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the 
Life."  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
school  one  has  been  summoned  to  his  rest  before 
completing  his  course  as  a  student  here.  [One  of 
the  students  had  died  in  the  vacation.]  Much  that 
is  still  dark  to  us  is  now  part  of  the  new  song  to 
him.  And  after  all,  that  fuller  and  ceaseless  swell 
of  harmony,  the  harpers  harping  with  their  harps 
as  the  seer's  vision  of  our  redemption  from  all  the 
darkness — for  there  is  no  night  there — is  to  be  one 
day  the  perfect  utterance  of  the  soul. 


XII 
CAMABADEEIB 

Divinity  School  intimacies,  like  those  of  other 
places,  take  care  of  themselves.  Natural  lines  of 
congeniality,  previous  associations,  class  and  lecture 
groupings,  common  views  and  sometimes  common 
trials  here  as  elsewhere  in  the  world  bind  men  to- 
gether in  some  of  the  most  happy  and  lasting  ties  of 
life.  Damon  finds  Pythias.  David  finds  Jonathan 
and  all  through  the  after  ministry  correspondence 
or  reunion  are  those  of  "  hearts  of  each  other  sure  " 
and  ever  relieve  tedium  and  wear  of  the  day's  work. 
It  is  well  that  this  is  so,  and  it  is  the  best  kind  of 
character  endowment  for  an  alumni  association. 
The  man  who  finds  no  especial  friends  for  himself 
in  life  makes  a  big  mistake  and  somewhere  in  his 
make-up  there  is  a  big  defect. 

But  while  that  generally  comes  of  itself  we  must 
not  overlook  the  need  of  something  else  which 
comes  more  by  our  own  initiative  and  the  cultiva- 
tion, patient  and  persistent  by  the  grace  of  God,  of 
an  acquired  trait  of  character.  When  the  sons  of 
the  prophets  proposed  to  Elisha  enlargement  for 
their  straitened  habitation  they  volunteered  them- 

87 


88  APT   AND   MEET 

selves  the  suggestion :  ^  "  Let  us  go,  we  pray  thee, 
unto  Jordan,  and  take  thence  every  man  a  beam, 
and  let  us  make  a  place  there,  where  we  may  dwell." 
The  sense  of  each  one's  helping  his  little  to  the  new 
home  was  notably  felt  and  expressed.  Every  one 
wished  to  have  a  hand  in  putting  his  beam  into  the 
building.  That  was  their  own  idea  of  the  way  it 
should  go  up.  Beam  for  it  more  than  room  in  it, 
duty  to  it  more  than  privilege  from  it  dictated  the 
thought.  That  spirit  must  have  made  a  happy 
family  in  it.  The  question  was.  What  can  I  do  for 
it  ?  And  that  wonderfully  helped  that  other  ques- 
tion. What  can  it  do  for  me  ? 

It  is  a  satisfaction  which  I  see  no  reason  for 
hesitating  to  avow  that  our  conditions  here  are 
favorable  for  the  distinct  growth  of  such  a  spirit. 
Indeed  there  is  much  about  the  honest-hearted 
young  man  of  to-day  to  make  him  respect  and  wish 
to  lend  a  hand  to  whatever  contributes  to  the 
morale  and  efficiency  of  anything  to  which,  as  we 
say,  he  belongs.  He  feels  bound  not  only  to  stand 
up  for,  but  by  some  downright  service  to  sustain  its 
repute.  His  heam  he  fits  in  somewhere  when  it 
will  tell  as  strongly  and  structurally  as  he  can 
make  it.  This  of  course  applies  to  his  scholarship, 
his  athletic  record  when  that  is  involved  in  any 

1  2  Kings  6:2. 


CAMARADERIE  89 

academic  career,  and  his  outspoken  allegiance. 
ISTot  oblivious  to  limitations  or  shortcomings  in  his 
body  corporate  he  does  his  best  to  be  a  helpful 
rather  than  a  mere  critical  or  peevish  factor  in 
meeting  them. 

Now  there  is  one  feature  of  a  Divinity  School  life 
which  somehow  needs  especial  stress  laid  upon  it  in 
this  connection.  That  is  the  sense  of  true  comrade- 
ship in  the  ministry  for  which  the  life  of  the 
seminary  can  do  so  much  if  the  opportunity  is  only 
duly  understood  and  improved.  Over  and  above 
those  spontaneous  friendships  already  referred  to 
this  opportunity  exists.  The  purport  of  it  is  that 
besides  the  affinities  natural  between  men  there 
must  be  a  conscience  and  a  habit  of  every  one  to 
create  an  atmosphere  of  fellowship  in  the  Gospel, 
yes,  of  Yoke-fellowship,  as  we  are  placed  side  by 
side  under  the  taking  of  Christ's  yoke  upon  us. 
Common  intellectual  zest  makes  real  hospitality  of 
one  man's  thought  towards  another,  even  though 
convictions  and  processes  of  mind  may  be  diamet- 
rically opposed.  At  the  time  of  the  beginnings  and 
development  of  the  Oxford  movement  when  the 
common  room  of  Oriel  College  had  that  galaxy  of 
bright  minds,  each  contributed  to,  as  each  gained 
from,  the  discussions.  And  they  might  be  as  diflfer- 
ently  constituted  and  range  as  far  apart  in  after  life 


90  APT  AND   MEET 

as  did  Thomas  Arnold  and  John  Keble  and  yet  the 
community  of  interests  of  the  old  Oriel  life  sur- 
vived, as  it  probably  ever  softened  their  divergencies. 
And  so  the  common  life  and  common  table  converse 
of  those  associated  in  the  preparation  for  the  min- 
istry may  be  made  to  have  a  most  salutary  effect 
upon  the  whole  attitude  of  mind  towards  others  as 
men  mingle  together  in  all  the  things  that  try  their 
souls  in  after  relations  of  the  ministry.  For  one 
must  not  disguise  from  himself  the  temptations  that 
are  so  thick  and  subtile  as  brother  rubs  against 
brother  in  that  after  life  of  activity.  Odium 
theologicum  has  passed  into  a  proverb  as  a  special 
brand  of  rancor.  Even  the  Apostles  were  led  into 
wranglings  of  precedence.  The  thing  that  gave 
Diotrephes  Scriptural  fame  was  his  "  loving  to  have 
the  preeminence."  And  so  all  along  there  is  that 
weakness  of  human  nature  showing  itself  in  caus- 
ing divisions  through  pride  or  intolerance,  or  ambi- 
tion or  envyings.  And  no  exegete  need  dwell  long 
on  that  text — in  the  light  of  history  arid  of  the 
human  heart — "  Where  envying  and  strife  are  there 
are  confusion  and  every  evil  work."  You  can  hardly 
hope  to  escape  your  share  of  such  things,  contact 
with  the  littlenesses,  and  rivalries,  and  jealousies, 
and  bitternesses  and  bickerings  and  malice  that  good 
men  are  exposed  to  from  without  and  from  within, 


CAMARADERIE  91 

and  the  havoc  such  things  cause  in  character  and  in 
the  Church.  Sad  priestly  blemishes  they  are  break- 
ing up  what  might  be  the  solid  frontage  of  the 
phalanx  of  brethren,  the  sneer  of  the  Cynic,  the  won- 
der of  the  faithful,  the  spectacle  of  all  men  even  as 
Pilate  knew  that  for  envy  they  had  delivered  Christ. 
To  be  forewarned  of  this  should  be  to  become  fore- 
armed here  and  now.  And  the  surest  way  to 
guard  against  such  sources  of  alienation  and  dispute 
among  brethren  is  to  early  cultivate  the  spirit  of 
comradeship.  It  is  not  to  be  mistaken  for  an 
attempt  to  force  companionship,  when  that  does  not 
come  of  itself.  That  would  be  artificial  and  un- 
wholesome. 

No,  to  cultivate  a  spirit  of  comradeship  and  to 
feel  a  sensitiveness  for  the  right  atmosphere  of 
Camaraderie  in  a  Divinity  School  there  must  be, 
first,  the  honest  willingness  to  go  out  of  our  way  to 
accomplish  it  and  not  to  look  upon  it  as  something 
which  "  just  happens  "  or  is  a  negligible  quantity. 
It  is  a  concern  of  undoubted  spiritual  import  to  be 
effected  by  spiritual  agencies.  And  to  get  oneself 
well  in  hand  in  the  matter  of  putting  up  with  oth- 
er's faults  or  peculiarities  and  of  getting  rid  of  any 
assets  of  like  sort  which  we  may  ourselves  happen 
to  possess  to  the  discomfort  of  others  is  a  timely 
ambition  which  the  very  spirit  of  camaraderie  may 


92  APT  AND   MEET 

help.  It  will  much  enhance  the  value  of  the  per- 
sonal equation  out  in  the  ministry,  if  the  minglings 
of  one  with  another  as  circumstances  shake  differ- 
ent tastes  and  temperaments  and  opinions  all  in  to- 
gether in  close  Seminary  contacts,  have  the  effect 
of  the  revolving  drum  in  the  screw  factory  which 
polishes  the  loosely  enclosed  screws  by  trituration. 
Far  better  will  it  be  than  to  have  men  isolate  and 
rust  themselves  in  cliques  only  of  the  like-minded, 
or  try  to  avoid  altogether  those  that  differ  from 
them.  This  is  the  very  bane  of  party  and  of  bigotry. 
It  is  then  of  the  first  importance  that  we  set  a  de- 
cided value  upon  this  attitude  of  brotherliness  with 
a  determination  to  make  it  worth  our  while  to 
understand  it  and  to  act  upon  it  as  an  invaluable 
qualification  for  a  peace-making  ministry — to  dread 
the  lack  of  it  as  we  would  the  role  of  an  ignoramus. 
And  we  remember  that  as  saintly  a  man  as  Bishop 
Andrewes  had  to  pray  "  to  think  kindly  of  others." 
A  first  essential  of  any  genuine  comradeship  any- 
where is  consideration  for  others.  And  where  is 
that  needed  more  than  in  the  Ministry  to-day  ?  In 
things  pertaining  to  God  now  as  of  old  he  who  is 
appointed  to  service  must  be  one  "  who  can  bear 
gently  with  the  ignorant  and  erring,  for  that  he 
himself  also  is  compassed  with  infirmity."  A  leader 
of  English  thought  in  the  last  century  explains  how 


CAMAEADERIE  93 

much  his  whole  life  had  been  influenced  by  inter- 
course with  men  of  his  own  age  at  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity, often  men  whose  tastes  were  most  unlike 
his  own,  and  strikingly  testifies  to  the  effect  upon 
him  of  the  consideration  of  one  of  his  fellows.  He 
says,  "I  was  a  noisy  and  often  angry  disputant 
though  mixing  much  shyness  with  my  presumption. 

In  most  parties  I  was  reckoned  a  bore.    But 

who  fancied  all  fine  things  of  me  because  I  had 
exactly  the  qualities  he  wanted  and  was  deficient 
in  those  he  had,"  even  when  his  opinion  "was 
shaken  when  he  suggested  that  I  had  passed  into  a 
fanatical  theologian  and  when  I  was  hard  and  cold 
to  him,  he  still  showed  me  the  rarest  friendship." 
How  many,  many  reminiscences  there  are  of  a  con- 
trary sort!  How  many,  many  opportunities  lost 
thoughtlessly  or  selfishly  of  helping  a  fellow  to  ex- 
periences of  so  thankful  and  happy  a  retrospect  of 
Divinity  School  days!  Indeed  many  a  time  the 
kindly  advances  and  interest  which  come  from  the 
recognition  of  the  duty  of  comradeship  kindle  into 
that  flame  in  which  the  old  proverb  becomes  true 
of  character,  "  A  crooked  stick  makes  a  straight 
fire." 

And  to  consideration  must  be  added  candor.  Or 
perhaps  it  were  better  put,  this  consideration  for 
others  is  consistent  with  candor,  for  in  the  close 


94  APT   AND   MEET 

contacts,  candor  there  is  apt  to  be  at  any  rate. 
The  genuine  self  is  pretty  thoroughly  revealed,  so 
unmistakably  that  it  is  often  noted  that  what  a 
man  is  to  his  immediate  contemporaries  in  the  Uni- 
versity or  Seminary  that  he  is  to  them  in  all  the 
after  years.  The  impression  becomes  &xed  and  is 
seldom  materially  revised.  As  almost  a  necessary 
consequence  of  this  mutual  reading  of  character, 
peculiarities  and  crudities  and  faults  and  weak- 
nesses come  into  a  somewhat  strong  light  and  there 
follows  the  running  chaff  and  comment  and  correc- 
tion which  have  such  wholesome  effect  in  a  dis- 
cipline all  of  their  own  when  good-naturedly  given 
and  taken. 

Then  besides  mutual  forbearance  and  this  rubbing 
away  of  rough  edges  another  very  contributory 
factor  in  camaraderie  is  self-schooling  in  open- 
mindedness  and  fairness  and  good  temper  in  dis- 
cussion and  controversy.  When  we  feel  strongly 
and  when  we  mingle  solely  with  those  who  are  like- 
minded  with  ourselves,  opposition  we  are  sure  to 
meet  is  apt  to  cause  heat  and  rashness  of  statement 
which  injure  both  the  cause  and  the  comradeship. 
A  training  like  that  for  the  bar  where  one  must 
hold  himself  well  in  hand  as  a  matter  of  business 
would  have  its  decided  advantage  for  any  clergy- 
man.    It  would  teach  him  to  keep  to  the  facts  and 


CAMARADERIE  95 

the  logic  without  interjecting  personal  pique  or 
bias.  But  there  must  be  a  deeper  principle  of  self- 
restraint  than  a  mere  professional  one.  There  must 
be  the  cultivation  of  a  habit  of  "  sweet  reasonable- 
ness." I  have  sometimes  thought  that  one  who  sits 
at  the  window  of  a  Kailroad  Bureau  of  Information 
in  a  large  city  and  answers  all  sorts  of  questions, 
oftentimes  obliged  to  "suffer  fools  gladly,"  and 
pacifies  all  sorts  of  irate  and  unreasonable  travel- 
ers could  give  us  of  the  clergy  valuable  points  of 
serenity  and  practical  philosophy  in  our  preparation 
for  dealing  with  people  generally.  It  would  cut 
out  not  a  little  irritability  and  narrowness  and 
other  things  that  count  so  seriously  against  getting 
along  with  the  all  sorts  of  folk  that  go  to  make  up 
a  world  and  a  congregation.  It  would  save  many  a 
one  from  wrecking  his  real  usefulness  in  the  minor 
and  less  important  matters  of  the  ministry.  It 
would  end  many  a  muddle  with  a  smile  instead  of  a 
sore  spot.  The  little  world  of  the  Divinity  School 
throws  together  strong  individualities.  The  open- 
ing up  of  the  new  fields  of  thought  and  investiga- 
tion in  the  various  departments  stimulates  discus- 
sion and  discussion  makes  alignments  of  views, — 
and  ready-made  views  de  omnibus  rebus  and  espe- 
cially upon  some  of  the  most  difficult  topics  of 
church  scholarship  are  apt  to  lose  nothing  in  posi- 


96  APT   AND   MEET 

tiveness  from  their  freshness.  The  result  is  that 
often  there  is  just  the  opportunity  under  such  oppo- 
sitions to  find  a  gymnasium  for  the  exercise  and 
development  of  the  finer  sense  of  fairness  and  will- 
ingness to  hear  the  other  side,  and  of  a  white  light 
of  fact  and  argument,  not  colored  with  pride  or 
prejudice.  And  such  a  principle  deepened  into 
habit  will  be  one  of  the  most  valuable  possessions 
you  can  carry  into  the  comminglings  and  contro- 
versies and  patient  leading  out  of  error,  of  the  work 
to  come.  And  it  should  be  somewhere  in  the  con- 
stant earnest  prayer  of  all  that  they  may  learn  that 
life  lesson  charged  upon  Timothy  by  St.  Paul  "  to 
be  gentle  unto  all  men,  apt  to  teach,  patient,  in 
meekness  instructing  those  that  oppose  themselves." 
Comradeship  here  is  after  all  then  only  one  phase 
of  that  earthly  fellowship  in  Christ  and  in  His  Min- 
istry which  is  part  of  the  communion  one  with  an- 
other in  His  Holy  Catholic  Church.  It  is  far  more 
than  temperament  drawn  to  temperament  and  man 
to  man  in  mere  accidental  association  under  this 
roof.  It  is  no  less  than  that  fellowship  in  which 
James,  Cephas  and  John  gave  their  right  hands  to 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  no  less  than  that  fellowship  of 
which  St.  John  wrote,  "  If  we  walk  in  the  light  as 
He  is  in  the  light  we  have  fellowship  one  with  an- 
other and  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  His  Son  cleanseth 


CAMAEADERIE  97 

US  from  all  sin."  There  is  much  that  we  can  do  to 
foster  it  and  to  promote  a  happy  atmosphere  of 
this  camaraderie.  There  is  much  we  can  be  on  our 
guard  against  in  order  to 

^'  Keep  far  our  foes,  give  peace  at  home.'' 

We  have  much  to  be  thankful  for,  it  should  be 
said  for  a  measure  of  its  realization  here  already. 
But  its  deepest  blessings  and  its  true  enjoyment 
must  come  from  that  Holy  Spirit  which  maketh 
men  to  be  of  one  mind  in  an  house.  The  Holy 
Spirit  will  help  each  one  do  his  part  towards  the 
sacred  comradeship  so  that  it  will  in  spirit  become 
a  true  Community.  It  may  mean  wrestlings  with 
self,  tendencies  for  us  to  overcome,  brotherliness 
to  be  brought  out  through  the  quiet  transforming 
process  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Keeping  too  much  to 
oneself  may  withhold  the  dues  of  one  towards 
comradeship  as  too  much  self-assertion  of  another 
may  jar  it.  Indifference  to  it  may  have  to  be 
roused.  False  perspective  about  its  importance 
may  need  rectification.  But  all  these  and  other  hin- 
drances to  it  are  matters  of  that  direct  character 
training  for  which  these  are  most  hopeful,  most 
profitable  years.  The  very  balance  and  rounding 
that  some  characters  need  and  that  other  characters 
can  give  is  the  due  value  and  use  of  comradeship. 


98  APT  AND   MEET 

The  Church  and  the  world  need  social  Christianity 
fully  as  much  as  they  need  Christian  Socialism. 
And  by  the  grace  of  God,  the  atmosphere  of  that 
you  can  make  more  and  more  the  atmosphere  of 
your  preparatory  period  in  Divinity  School  days. 


XIII 
VOCATION  AND  VACATION 

The  play  upon  words — "  Vocation  and  Vaca- 
tion " — is  a  very  ancient  one,  dignified  by  patristic 
use.  And  the  associated  thoughts  are  as  old  as  hu- 
manity, and  as  elementary  as  the  moral  command- 
ments to  labor  the  six  days  and  rest  the  seventh. 
Even  the  proportion  of  rest  to  work  seems  to  have 
been  fixed  in  our  physical  nature  as  well  as  that  of 
animals  as  was  shown  under  the  breakdown  of 
both  in  the  attempt  of  the  French  Kevolution  to 
substitute  every  tenth  for  every  seventh  day.  And 
we  may  be  sure  the  vision  of  an  anaemic,  dyspeptic, 
bilious-tinged,  overworked  clergyman  appeals  to  no 
Candidate  for  Holy  Orders. 

But  unless  there  is  some  intelligent  and  resolute 
principle  of  coordinating  vocation  with  vacation  on 
wholesome,  not  to  say  conscientious  lines,  there  is 
apt  to  be  trouble  ahead,  and  a  good  deal  of  it  and  a 
very  harassing  drag  of  it  for  that  future  ministry. 
One  common  foretaste  of  this  is  in  the  time  spent  in 
health  experiments  in  those  years  of  young  man- 
hood when  indigestion  and  other  ills,  imaginary  or 

99 


100  APT   AND   MEET 

not,  bring  one  to  that  unwelcome  sense  that  he 
must — perhaps  in  boyhood  or  youth  he  has  ridi- 
culed the  idea — learn  to  take  care  of  himself.  If  at 
that  early  stage  of  affairs  some  sensible  rule  of  rest 
is  found  and  adhered  to,  it  will  save  and  be  far 
more  effective  than  spasmodic  resort  to  all  kinds  of 
heroic  exercise  or  sure-cure  quackeries.  And  the 
failure  to  know  how  to  rest  has  not  a  little  to  do 
oftentimes  with  the  failure  to  know  how  to  work. 
It  may  land  a  man  in  either  one  or  two  misfit 
classes  in  the  ministry.  Without  due  recreation  he 
may  become  a  drudge  or  a  nervous  fidget.  "With- 
out putting  real  strokes  of  work  when  we  do  work 
and  so  consecrating  regular  time  to  that,  nothing  is 
easier  than  to  fall  into  the  dawdling  habit,  "  mak- 
ing vacation  our  vocation  "  as  I  have  heard  an  old 
Father  quoted,  and  so  turning  out  the  ignoble  speci- 
men of  a  lazy  clergyman.    If 

'^  All  work  and  no  play 
Makes  Jack  a  dull  boy,'' 

we  may  add : 

All  play  and  no  work 
Makes  Jack  a  sad  shirk. 

Our  routine  of  the  Seminary  life  reflecting  of 
course  in  this  respect  the  life  of  the  age,  provides 
the  daily,  the  weekly  and  the  annual  periods  of  in- 


VOCATION   AND   VACATION  101 

terval  between  working  courses  and  hours.  These 
intervals  include  the  night's  rest  in  sleep,  the  week's 
rest  on  one  of  the  seven  days,  and  the  holiday 
times  between  terms.  So  far  as  the  reporting  for 
prescribed  duty  is  concerned,  each  of  these  is  a 
vacuum  and  constitutes  a  real  if  not  a  technical 
vacation. 

It  will,  I  believe,  in  no  way  question  the  natural 
and  spontaneous  falling  into  line  with  this  self-evi- 
dent scheme  which  is  the  happy  experience  of  so 
many  who  do  it  as  a  matter  of  course  and  get  the 
benefit  of  it  without  much  thought  about  it,  and  it 
will  hardly  be  misconstrued  as  a  counsel  to  any- 
thing artificial  or  eccentric,  if  we  stop  to  reflect  a 
little  upon  a  right  use  of  these  various  phases  of 
vacation. 

And  first  no  man  can  afford  to  be  a  virtual  spend- 
thrift of  his  night's  rest.  Whether  there  is  the 
temptation  of  the  student  to  encroach  upon  it  with 
his  books,  or  of  the  idler  to  cut  into  it  with  the  late 
sessions  of  circles  of  companionship,  nature  in  the 
long  run  will  have  her  revenges  in  one  shape  or 
another  of  impaired  health  or  vigor.  And  overwork 
that  puts  a  man  below  his  physical  par  in  the  Divinity 
School  is  but  a  premonition  of  the  always  tired 
feeling  which  makes  him  so  uncomfortably  conscious 
of  falling  below  his  mark  week  in  and  week  out  of 


102        Ca.  .?Z  APT   AND   MEET 

his  active  work.  Somewhere  about  the  eight  hours' 
sleep  is  the  quota  of  the  average  young  man  and  he 
who  makes  up  his  mind  to  guard  that  as  eflfectually 
as  he  can,  will  not  be  apt  to  be  wakeful  when  he 
wishes  to  be  sleepy  or  sleepy  when  he  needs  and 
ought  to  be  wide  awake. 

Furthermore,  to  keep  a  true  Sabbath  of  rest 
every  week,  however  inviting  or  sensible  it  may 
seem,  is  by  no  means  the  automatic  arrangement  it 
might  appear  to  be  for  a  busy  man.  If  it  were 
practicable  to  so  order  the  Divinity  School  life  that 
the  Sundays  could  be  left  free  from  outside  duties 
and  be  reserved  for  personal  cultivation  of  a  spirit 
of  worship  "  in  the  beauty  of  holiness  "  without  the 
care  or  distractions  of  responsibility  for  conducting 
Services;  if  some  part  of  the  Sunday  could  be 
given  up  to  the  refreshing  walk  or  nap,  and  another 
part  to  reading  some  uplifting  biography  or  other 
devotional  literature  followed  by  fervent  pouring 
out  the  soul  by  oneself  in  prayer;  if  the  whole 
day  could  be  so  made  really  different  from  other 
days,  who  could  calculate  the  spiritual,  not  to  say 
the  mental  and  physical  vigor  and  strength  with 
which  each  week  the  consecration  to  the  work 
would  be  reinforced  ?  And  then  the  habit  thus 
formed  will  persist  so  far  as  practicable  in  the  after 
ministry,  not  letting  a  man  feel  easy  unless  he  can 


VOCATION   AND   VACATION  103 

somehow  secure  in  his  weekly  round  some  period  of 
relaxation  and  new  vision. 

Circumstances  in  many  cases  do  not  permit  here 
the  fuller  realization  of  that  ideal.  Lay-reading  and 
other  duties,  for  reasons  into  which  I  need  not  enter, 
preempt  the  Sunday  and  preoccupy  the  hours  that 
might  become  so  precious  with  spiritual  values.  But 
here  the  very  limitations  have  their  suggestiveness. 
That  life  after  Ordination  will  be  likely  to  be  one 
crowding  the  Sunday  with  Services  and  other 
public  calls  upon  time.  And  in  his  own  spiritual 
and  physical  interest  the  wise  clergyman  must 
somehow  resolutely  manage  to  have  some  time 
every  week  he  can  call  his  own  for  his  Sabbath.  If 
it  is  his  happy  lot  to  have  some  part  of  Sunday — 
say  the  afternoon — free,  so  much  the  better.  If  not 
let  it  be  some  other  day,  Saturday  or  Monday,  and 
if  not  a  full  day,  a  half-day.  The  methodical  man 
can  generally  make  for  himself  some  running  rule, 
however  many  may  be,  of  course,  the  exceptions. 
And  the  one  who  realizes  what  is  best  for  him  and 
for  his  usefulness  will  see  to  it  that  the  time  so  pre- 
scribed has  both  its  proportion  of  healthy  exercise 
and  recreation  and  its  as  vital  proportion  of  de- 
votional rekindling.  Above  all  things  when  cares 
and  sorrows  and  burdens  press  home  he  will  need 
betimes  to  be  able  so  to  say  from  such  hours  :    "  In 


104  APT  AND   MEET 

the  multitude  of  the  sorrows  that  I  had  in  my 
heart  Thy  comforts  have  refreshed  my  soul."  Be- 
gin here  and  now  in  these  shaping  years  to  provide 
somewhere  in  the  week — and  the  routine  of  the 
School,  in  recognition  of  the  Sunday  calls  upon  your 
time,  makes  Monday  a  free  day — for  intelligent  and 
settled  Sabbath  invigoration  of  body  and  spirit. 
Put  method  into  it.  Fix  the  habit  now  and  it  may 
give  tone  to  your  whole  ministry. 

If  we  try  to  rise  to  a  high-minded  sense  of  the 
place  of  vacation  in  our  vocation,  it  will  save  us 
from  delusions  about  what  we  call  the  vacations  of 
the  School  year.  The  very  last  thing  to  think  of 
them  is  that  they  are  times  for  mere  idling.  In 
point  of  fact  no  one  here  I  presume  so  regards 
them.  Every  man,  for  example,  realizes  that 
the  long  summer  holiday  is  meant  to  afford 
him  opportunity  for  the  side  reading  in  the  various 
lines  of  study  that  in  the  sequence  of  Lectures  and 
Eecitations  in  term  time  he  may  not  be  able  to  ac- 
complish. It  is  the  time  to  school  himself  in 
initiative  as  a  student  and  to  feel  the  zest  for  learn- 
ing on  his  own  account.  In  the  short  period  given 
a  Divinity  School  to  cover  so  much,  the  Lectures 
can  oftentimes  only  point  the  way  and  call  out  the 
literary  "Wanderlust  of  the  true  learner.  The 
vacation    gives    the    opportunity    for    book    and 


VOCATION   AND   VACATION  105 

scholar  sightseeing  in  a  thousand  edifying  and 
absorbing  ways  over  the  course.  Oftentimes  it 
develops  special  tastes  and  acquirements  and  one 
discovers  to  himself  the  expert  in  some  Department. 
Then,  as  in  the  case  of  Phillips  Brooks,  who  is  a 
signal  instance  of  one  showing  initiative  of  research 
in  his  preparatory  work  : 

*^  The  cold  grasp  of  duty  embraces  delight 
Like  the  rough  rocky  bay  where  the  waters  lie  bright." 

And  it  is  much  to  learn  how  to  use  a  vacation  to 
true  bodily  and  mental  and  spiritual  comfort  in 
other  ways.  Even  under  conditions  which  prohibit 
the  larger  expenditures  for  travel  or  atmosphering 
oneself  in  scenes  and  surroundings  that  appeal  to 
a  love  of  nature  or  of  art  or  of  Old  World  tradi- 
tions that  may  be  the  privilege  of  later  years,  much 
may  be  accomplished  by  discriminating  plans  and 
purposes  in  a  holiday  season.  The  choice  of  the 
place  and  kind  of  outing  to  fit  one's  own  prefer- 
ences instead  of  merely  following  the  crowd ;  the 
careful  provision  for  time  for  communing  with  self 
and  with  God  and  "  being  still "  whatever  the 
memoranda  for  communing  with  nature  and  being 
healthfully  active ;  the  freeing  of  self  from  fag  that 
there  may  be  elasticity  and  receptiveness  for  in- 
spiration and  aspiration ;  all  these  send  a  man  back 


106  APT   AND   MEET 

to  his  day's  work  with  a  resiliency  and  vigor  of  at- 
tack which  suffuse  the  whole  with  a  new  joy  and 
new  fervency.  "The  right  use  of  leisure,"  said 
Bishop  Westcott,  "  is  an  object  of  education,  not 
second — the  Judgment  of  Aristotle — even  to  the 
right  fulfilment  of  work." 

Forethought  then  and  the  simple  striking  the 
right  value  of  vacation  in  vocation  in  some  such  ways 
as  I  have  outlined  back  of  the  regular  exercise  that 
needs  no  commendation,  can  constitute  the  Semi- 
nary life  a  veritable  gymnasium  for  wholesome 
standards  of  a  health  regimen.  For  the  work's 
sake  as  well  as  for  physical  well-being,  one  of  the 
best  safeguards  against  an  anaemic  or  a  jaundiced 
or  a  neurasthenic  ministry,  or  a  premature  break- 
down of  usefulness  lies  in  the  right  fixing  of  habits 
of  the  good  night's  rest,  the  weekly  recreation  and 
the  visionful  vacation. 


XIY 

BOOKS  AND  BOOKISHIsTESS 

It  is  curiously  though  accidentally  significant 
that  while  the  Lambeth  Conference  of  1897  met  in 
an  old  "  Guard  Koom  "  at  Lambeth  Palace,  the  last 
Conference  of  1908  met  in  an  old  Library.  Betake 
yourselves  to  your  books,  is  the  purport  of  one  of 
the  strongest  messages  out  of  the  recent  Encyclical 
Letter  of  the  Conference  to  clergy  and  all  interested 
in  true  standards  of  Education  throughout  the 
Church.  The  leaders  not  only  sentinel  the  times  as 
in  a  Guard  Koom,  but  seize  the  opportunity  to  stress 
the  Study  and  Training  function  as  the  Library 
atmosphere  has  become  again  a  matter  of  prime  and 
pressing  consequence.  One  of  the  earliest  Libraries 
known  to  history  was  designated  by  a  heathen 
leader  as  a  "  Dispensary  for  the  Soul,"  and  so  no 
one  would  claim  that  it  is  a  new  idea,  though  I  be- 
lieve there  are  few  that  would  deny  that  it  is  a  most 
opportune  one  for  the  existing  century  conditions. 
The  mediaeval  habit  of  bookishness  as  a  habit  for 
erudition  had  in  it  many  things  of  present-day 
value  for  scope  and  finish  in  its  application  to  pres- 
ent-day subject  matter. 

107 


108  APT   AND   MEET 

Let  US  start  with  three  facts :  1.  As  Divinity 
Students  you  must  use  and  own  books.  2.  A 
Seminary  must  have  a  general  Library  and  3.  Your 
own  books  and  the  Library  as  well  as  recitations 
and  lectures  must  have  due  regard  for  the  figure  of 
the  "  scribe  like  unto  a  man  that  is  an  householder 
which  bringeth  forth  out  of  his  treasures  things  new 
and  old." 

Now  the  sense  of  ownership  and  association  by 
use  is  one  which  responds  to  cultivation.  The  use 
of  an  ordinary  text-book,  for  example,  may  put  the 
autograph  of  your  property  in  it  in  more  ways  than 
one.  You  may  mark  passages  that  strike  you  and 
put  in  references  and  annotations  and  associate 
teachings  and  thoughts  with  it  that  will  make  it 
like  an  old  friend  you  like  to  have  by  you.  An  old 
book  on  the  Articles  once  came  into  my  possession  in 
which  the  possessor,  presumably  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  had  made  running  marginal  expression  of 
his  approval  or  not  by  simply  drawing  the  line  of  a 
profile,  forehead,  nose  and  mouth,  with  the. curve  of 
the  mouth  upward  or  downward  to  denote  the  smile 
or  sour  face  as  the  case  might  be.  And  then  in 
any  book,  memoranda  of  paragraphs  and  pages  on 
the  blank  leaves  next  the  cover,  as  one  studies  or 
reads  with  the  handy  lead  pencil,  constitute  a  simple 
ready  reference  system  for  whatever  meat  you  have 


BOOKS  AND   BOOKISHNESS  109 

found  in  the  book.  These  are  some  of  the  second- 
ary helps  to  becoming  a  book  lover,  which  is  a  vast 
step  beyond  being  a  mere  user  or  owner.  A  book 
lover  has  a  certain  respect  for  his  books — you  can 
sometimes  see  it  in  the  very  way  he  treats  them — 
and  soon  discovers  in  himself  a  just  pride  in  them 
and  a  dawning  ambition  to  build  up  a  library  all 
his  own.  That  again  should  be  recognized  and  en- 
couraged. To  get  one  shelfful  and  then  another  of 
good  and  useful  books  has  a  zest  laudable  and  hope- 
ful. And  however  small  the  space  or  frugal  the 
purchase  money  available,  the  sooner  one  feels  it 
and  acts  intelligently  upon  it  the  better.  Such  a 
library  builder  always  builds  better  than  he  knows 
for  his  after  work.  And  the  probability  is  that  in 
his  future  rectory  with  such  a  habit,  and  all  it  means 
of  study  and  reading  and  fresh  thought  in  his  min- 
istry, it  will  always  be  easier  for  him  to  house  such 
a  library  than  it  would  be  while  absorbed  in  other 
tastes  to  find  sufficient  show  of  books  to  keep  a  room 
called  a  library  in  countenance. 

Obviously  a  matter  of  first  concern  is  to  know 
how  to  be  a  practical  library  builder.  And  here 
some  hints  may  be  found  helpful.  Suppose  then 
you  are,  while  in  your  Seminary  course,  laying 
foundations  for  a  good  working  library :  at  first 
you  may   not  be  able  to  do   more  than  get  the 


110  APT   AND   MEET 

necessary  text-books  as  they  come  in  course.  Take 
good  care  of  them.  If  there  be  a  little  spare  cash 
some  principle  of  selection  will  save  mistakes  and 
imprudent  purchasing  and  lumbering  up  of  your 
shelves  with  what  you  can  do  without  or  at  least 
defer  buying.  Every  volume  you  get  when  you  are 
so  limited  in  expenditure  should  count  for  your 
culture.  That  of  course  will  include  now  and  then 
a  book  of  general  literature  as  well  as  those  of  your 
technical  course.  It  will  be  well  to  consult  the 
Professors  in  their  several  Departments,  lists  of 
reference  works  named  in  current  lectures,  of  au- 
thorities named  at  the  end  of  special  articles  in 
Bible  and  Church  Dictionaries,  Commentaries  and 
Treatises  on  special  parts  of  the  Bible  and  the  like. 
Unless  there  be  ample  means,  expensive  sets  of 
Books  of  Reference  can  generally  for  the  time  be 
consulted  in  the  School  Library.  Suggestive  lists 
are  given  in  such  books  as  "The  Priest's  Prayer 
Book,"  Gott's  "  Parish  Priest  of  the  Town,"  Bibli- 
ography at  the  end  of  Standard  Works,  in  local 
Public  Libraries,  etc.  In  this  connection  it  may  be 
well  to  call  attention  to  the  need  of  acquiring  a 
habit  of  using  the  General  Library  both  in  follow- 
ing up  side  reading  prompted  by  the  Lectures  and 
in  initiative  in  becoming  informed  in  subjects  in 
which  one  is  interested.     I  think  it  may  safely  be 


BOOKS   AND   BOOKISHX^ESS  111 

said  of  the  General  Libraries  of  our  Seminaries  that 
they  could  well  be  used  far  more  than  they  are. 
Enterprise  in  that  direction  will  incidentally  help 
in  knowing  what  to  buy,  because  later  on  the  pur- 
chasing instinct  will  move  in  the  direction  of  one's 
own  development  of  taste  and  specialty,  and  he  will 
build  up  his  alcoves  around  his  interests,  and  so 
minimize  desultory  buying.  Then  his  principle  of 
selection  will  become  well  defined,  the  only  lookout 
necessary  being  to  keep  in  mind  breadth  of  read- 
ing and  buying  as  a  safeguard  against  narrow 
pedantry. 

And  so  from  small  beginnings  the  library  will 
grow  and  each  book  will  be  an  added  pleasure  and 
your  bookcase  will  become  the  article  of  furniture 
that  appeals  to  you  most.  Companionship  with 
even  the  backs  of  such  friends  turned  towards  you 
will  be  sweet  and  salutary.  As  the  shelves  grow 
and  the  means  perhaps  justifies  systematic  addition, 
a  wholesome  bookishness  will  suggest  several 
sensible  ways  of  using  a  principle  of  selection. 
You  will  take  some  Standard  Keview,  you  will  scan 
Review  Columns  and  lists  of  new  books  in  the 
Church  newspapers  and  avail  yourselves  of  such 
sampling  of  experts  of  what  is  brand  new  from  the 
presses.  You  will  have  your  name  on  the  mailing 
list  of  experienced  publishers  of  catalogues  of  second- 


112  APT   AND   MEET 

hand  books  to  pick  up  standard  editions  of  Church 
and  classic  literature  of  long  standing.  You  will 
consult  some  such  Authority  as  Darling's  Cyclojpoddia 
JBihliogrwphica  to  learn  what  are  the  best  editions 
of  Fathers  or  other  writers  of  a  given  period.  And 
so  you  will  surround  yourself  with  tools  for  your 
purpose  as  does  the  workman  in  his  shop,  and  with 
aids  to  your  culture  and  vision  as  does  the  land- 
scape artist  with  pigment  and  outlook. 

This  all  presupposes  that  you  are  constantly 
learning  in  the  great  book  of  human  nature  where 
your  every-day  life  in  the  Ministry  will  be  a  library 
in  itself.  It  will  not  interfere  with,  it  will  de- 
cidedly help,  your  reading,  so  far  as  in  you  lieth, 
yourselves  and  others  "like  a  book."  Newman 
wrote  his  plain  sermons,  which  are  models  of  search- 
ing treatment  of  the  human  heart,  out  of  a  scholar's 
study.  Bookishness  may  tempt  to  the  life  of  the 
recluse  or  the  impracticable,  but  in  this  bustling 
age  to  the  Ministry  of  to-day  it  is  not  a  serious 
menace  of  anything  like  that.  And  on  the  other 
hand  the  new  Lambeth  Encyclical  urges  that  "Life- 
long study  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  work  of  the 
priest." 

And  then  above  all  things  the  Clergyman's 
Library,  whatever  else  its  excellence,  must,  if  built 
on  true  lines,  be  in  evidence  of  that  priestly  vow : 


BOOKS   AND   BOOKISHNESS  113 

"  Will  you  be  diligent  ...  in  reading  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  and  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  same,  by  laying  aside  the  study  of  the 
world  and  the  flesh?  I  will  endeavor  so  to  do, 
the  Lord  being  my  helper."  To  be  studious  "in 
reading  and  learning  the  Scriptures,"  "  by  daily 
reading  and  weighing  the  Scriptures  to  wax  riper 
and  stronger  "  in  the  Ministry,  this  requires  a  large 
element  of  what  might  be  called  Scripture  bookish- 
ness  on  the  part  of  the  faithful  priest.  "  The  Book  " 
must  really  give  the  theme  to  that  Library.  Mere 
electic  or  individualistic  reading  and  library  read- 
ing do  not  fulfil  the  end.  A  library  may  repre- 
sent simple  fad  growth.  I  have  seen  clerical 
libraries  where  you  might  search  in  vain  for  a 
single  copy  of  the  whole  Bible  on  its  shelves; 
others  where  there  were  newer  books  upon  almost 
everything  current  but  the  Bible  and  that  in  evi- 
dence perhaps  in  an  antiquated  commentary  tucked 
away  in  some  corner.  Of  course  anything  that 
deals  with  God's  truth,  especially  upon  its  applica- 
tion to  great  passing  questions  of  mankind,  is  more 
or  less  indirectly  associated  with  His  Book  of  Truth. 
But  however  much  one  may  profit  by  browsing 
afield  upon  such  fresh  literature,  that  does  not  take 
the  place  of  the  vow  of  direct  study  and  reading. 
And    if    such    study  and    reading    are  first-hand 


114  APT   AND   MEET 

matters  with  him,  his  Library  can  hardly  help  to 
show  it  in  his  intelligent  use  of  the  direct  help  to 
such  study  that  contemporary  scholarship  supplies. 
That  means  a  keen  interest  from  time  to  time  to 
add  to  the  shelf  distinctly  and  primarily  volumes 
of  the  literature  which  fortunately  is  so  abundant 
and  accessible  in  our  day,  which  is  closely  auxiliary 
to  the  Bible  and  can  be  justly  classified  among 
"  such  studies  as  help  to  the  knowledge  of  the  same." 
There  should  be  in  a  priest's  library,  somewhere  in 
its  lines  of  books  well  proportioned  with  the  whole, 
a  selection  of  titles  new  and  old  so  suggestive  of 
Bible  research  that  to  look  at  them  would  almost 
in  itself  suggest  the  collect  for  the  Second  Sunday 
in  Advent.  Then  perspective  in  Library  building 
becomes  true.  The  Library  builds  the  ministry, 
the  Bible  builds  the  Library  and  He  builds  the 
Bible  who  has  charged  us,  "  Ye  search  the  Scrip- 
tures because  ye  think  in  them  ye  have  eternal 
life:  and  these  are  they  which  bear  witness  of 
Me." 


XV 

MONEY  MATTEES 

If  "  the  love  of  money  is  a  root  of  all  kinds  of 
evil " — as  it  rankly  is  in  and  out  of  the  Ministry — 
looseness  in  money  matters,  especially  in  the  Church 
sphere,  produces  a  fertile  crop  all  of  its  own.  This 
may  come  from  a  love  of  money  or  from  an  in- 
difference to  money.  As  against  the  former  there 
probably  never  has  been  an  age  when  the  Church 
needed  to  pray  more  earnestly  in  the  language  of 
the  St.  Matthew's  Day  Collect,  "  Grant  us  grace  to 
forsake  all  covetous  desires  and  inordinate  love  of 
riches."  Clergy  are  by  no  means  immune  from 
that  close  material  besetment  of  the  laity.  But 
many  circumstances  combine  to  make  the  danger 
perhaps  lie  more  in  another  direction  to  Candidates 
for  Holy  Orders,  not  to  say  those  admitted  to  Holy 
Orders.  There  is  a  very  common  sentiment,  often 
expressed,  that  "  the  clergy  have  no  business  head  " 
that  well  indicates  the  danger.  As  in  all  such  gen- 
eral statements  I  believe  the  old  maxim  that  "a 
fallacy  lurks  in  generalities  "  is  to  be  well  noted 
here.     Simple  facts  show  time  and  time  again  that 

so  far  from  being  the  agents  of  looseness  in  money 

115 


116  APT   AND   MEET 

matters,  or  bunglers  in  finance,  it  is  simple  justice 
to  the  Clergy  to  recognize  that  they  have  rescued 
financial  situations  that  business  men  have  allowed 
to  become  critical,  and  have  shaped  money  policies 
and  adjusted  money  budgets  which  have  won  the 
confidence  and  admiration  of  the  best  financiers. 
It  is  then  the  veriest  rubbish  in  the  light  of  ex- 
perience to  rate  even  the  average  man  in  the 
Sacred  Office  as  a  dupe  or  one  who  makes  "  ducks 
and  drakes  "  of  it  when  it  comes  to  money  matters. 

But  all  the  same  many  a  money  difficulty  could 
be  averted  if  proper  care  were  exercised,  and 
proper  warning  were  heeded  at  the  outset  to  learn 
to  exercise  such  care  in  seeing  that  funds  that  come 
under  our  control  whether  personal  or  public  are 
managed — as  Clement  of  Alexandria  of  old  put  it 
— "  with  wisdom,  sobriety  and  piety."  Our  Lord 
from  a  coin  drew  a  wide  lesson  of  punctilio  in  ren- 
dering all  our  duties  of  citizenship.  He  scrupu- 
lously balanced  the  account  of  tribute  money  due. 
And  let  no  one  feel  that  it  is  safe  or  sound  to  toler- 
ate in  himself  any  happy-go-lucky  views  or  habits 
in  this  matter,  however  high  his  other  ideals  for  the 
ministry  may  be.  Now,  if  ever,  is  the  time  to  learn 
right  rules  of  the  pocketbook  and  the  Church  funds. 

Obviously  with  the  narrow  margins  with  which 
the    average    man    in    a    Divinity  School  has  to 


MONEY   MATTERS  117 

reckon,  he  is  obliged  to  think  about,  and  school  him- 
self in  the  economies  of  "his  ways  and  means." 
No  strange  thing  happens  to  him  if  he  finds  him- 
self obliged  to  supplement  any  resource  in  his  reach 
with  Scholarships  or  moderate  loans.  The  outside 
help  no  doubt  has  its  temptations.  There  may  be 
one  now  and  then  who,  as  is  said,  "  lies  down  upon 
it "  as  a  sort  of  easy  access  to  an  education  and  a 
living.  Perhaps  it  may  tend  to  encourage  indo- 
lence and  mediocrity  with  an  easy-come,  easy-go 
view  of  money  and  life.  Public  utterances  upon 
alleged  evils  of  beneficiary  education  do  not  permit 
such  temptations  to  be  overlooked.  And  self-help 
should  be  stimulated  and  urged  to  the  limit.  But 
when  that  is  all  admitted,  under  present  condi- 
tions, when,  for  example,  teaching  which  used  to  be 
so  frequent  and  available  a  resource  for  the  self- 
help  of  the  student  for  the  ministry,  is  now  ever 
narrowing  to  those  who  make  it  their  noble  pro- 
fession, and  give  their  whole  time  to  it,  the  limit  of 
self-help  would  simply  be  prohibitory  to  hundreds 
whom  the  ministry  needs,  and  has  been  using  as 
foremost  factors  of  its  progress  in  the  past.  And 
no  true  man  conscientiously  using  such  supplemen- 
tary help  beyond  the  limit  of  his  own  resource — 
and  every  true  man  I  have  known  would  prefer  to 
do  without  it  if  he  could — to  realize  his  vocation, 


118  APT   AND   MEET 

need  have  misgiving  as  it  seems  to  me.  The  indis- 
criminate faulting  of  beneficiary  education  which 
would  reason  from  acknowledged  abuses  to  essen- 
tial evil  in  any  use  of  it,  could  not  in  consistency 
stop  short  of  challenging  the  effect  of  any  student's 
accepting  the  distributed  benefit  of  the  endow- 
ments of  a  university.  Even  when  he  pays  all  his 
current  bills  he  gets  his  education  far  below  the 
actual  cost  by  virtue  of  the  revenues  from  the  endow- 
ment that  somebody  has  provided.  That  margin 
of  difference  really  constitutes  a  beneficiary  scholar- 
ship. At  any  rate  fresh  from  the  recent  Lambeth 
Conference  comes  a  Eesolution  urging  such  "  Ordi- 
nation Candidates'  Fund."  And  it  will  be  time  to 
abolish  all  granted  aid  in  the  preparation  for  a 
special  calling  in  life  which  is  avowedly  not  a 
money-getting  one,  when  the  Government  abolishes 
its  present  system  of  providing  entire  cost  of  prep- 
aration for  its  Army  and  Navy  at  West  Point  and 
Annapolis.  If  it  be  said  that  both  of  those  Institu- 
tions contemplate  selection  and  so  an  element  of 
competition,  what  but  that  underlies  the  whole  con- 
ception of  the  Church  and  the  Canons  that  there 
must  be  both  a  personal  sense  of  call  and  scrutiny 
with  many  stages  of  test  as  to  whether  the  Candi- 
date is  "apt  and  meet." 

There  is,  however,  all  the  more  reason  why  the 


MONEY   MATTERS  119 

value  of  money  should  be  interpreted  aright  in 
thrift  and  sensible  spending.  Some  succeed  in  cal- 
culating to  always  keep  a  little  ahead  out  of  a 
minimum  sum.  Others  are  always  behind  with  a 
maximum  amount.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the 
difference  lies  in  the  simple  getting  down  to  facing 
figures  and  acting  accordingly  without  allowing 
matters  to  run  and  taking  things  for  granted.  The 
one  looks  ahead,  figures  how  he  is  coming  out  and 
always  knows  where  he  stands.  The  other  dreads 
the  knowing,  keeps  little  or  no  account  of  anything 
and  only  has  the  sharp  reminder  of  the  bills  that 
have  overrun  his  means.  Laxity  grows  upon  the 
latter  and  unless  he  turns  to  the  right  about,  there  is 
the  prediction  of  a  man  who  has  a  career  before 
him  of  chronic  anxiety  and  perhaps  of  an  impecuni- 
ous ministry  and  that  serious  loss  of  caste  among 
business  men  which  comes  from  neglect  of  ordinary 
business  obligations.  The  best  managers  must 
sometimes  borrow  and  many  a  successful  priest  has 
been  obliged  to  do  it  to  cover  cost  of  preparation  or 
of  special  disabilities,  but  there  is  all  the  difference 
in  the  world  between  such  loans  punctiliously  re- 
deemed or  attended  to  and  a  demoralizing  habit  of 
borrowing  to  patch  along  which  betrays  shiftless- 
ness  and  seriously  qualifies  usefulness,  and  indeed 
soon  finds  a  ban  upon  its  own  opportunities. 


120  APT   AND   MEET 

And  this  which  applies  to  one's  own  money  mat- 
ters is  even  of  more  vital  consequence  in  that  deal- 
ing with  Church  Funds  that  every  clergyman  must 
expect  more  or  less  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties. 
It  is  a  good  rule  to  relegate  the  custodianship  of 
every  Fund  possible  to  competent  and  trustworthy 
laity,  or  at  least  to  hold  any  such  funds  jointly  with 
them.  In  any  event  there  should  be  an  annual  or 
more  frequent  Statement  and  Audit  of  all  such 
funds  in  the  interest  of  those  who  hold  them,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  Church.  All  Trust  Funds  should 
show  their  full  history  on  your  books  and  so  explain 
themselves  with  vouchers,  etc.  If,  as  in  some  cases, 
the  alms  for  the  poor,  for  example,  a  fund  must  be 
confidential,  the  certificate  of  some  discreet  Church 
officer  appointed  as  Auditor  can  be  read  to  the  Con- 
gregation or  published  without  the  detailed  items 
of  the  Statement.  This  will  require — on  the  part 
of  the  clerical  custodian — I  am  not  here  speaking  of 
like  conscience  in  Lay  Custodianship — some  simple 
knowledge  of  keeping  accounts  which  can  easily  be 
acquired  from  some  good  business  parishioner  (and 
it  is  intended  to  have  some  especial  instruction  upon 
this  in  your  course  here),  and  systematic  keeping  of 
such  accounts  as  under  the  audit  of  the  Lord.  And 
when  money  is  to  go  to  such  accounts  from  the 
alms  basons,  see  to  it,  or  have  some  one  see  to  it, 


MONEY   MATTERS  121 

that  at  once  the  money  is  taken  from  the  alms 
basons  and  counted  (by  more  than  one,  if  practi- 
cable) and  not  left  around  exposed  on  the  credence 
or  in  vestry  rooms  as  I  have  sometimes  seen  it,  at 
any  interval  when  after  service  you  are  busied 
about  other  things.  It  will  follow  if  you  are 
exacting  upon  yourself  in  a  sensitiveness  to  Church 
money  matters,  you  will  gradually  group  around 
you  Treasurers  for  various  Departments  of  like 
mind  and  habit. 

It  amounts  to  this  then — efficiency  and  rectitude 
in  your  money  matters  both  in  private  and  Church 
accounts,  as  a  clergyman  will  depend  upon  your 
high  sense  of  stewardship.  And  as  a  closing  word 
we  need  to  probe  that  somewhat  deeply  with  a 
wholesome  hint.  Far  more  than  you  will  be  likely 
to  realize,  your  own  genuine  sense  of  stewardship 
will  affect  the  whole  atmosphere  of  your  congrega- 
tion. Living  it  will  go  further  than  the  most 
cogent  teaching  it.  And  living  it  implies  some- 
thing back  of  these  ordinary  habits  of  prudence  in 
money  matters  of  which  I  have  just  been  speaking. 
Living  a  sense  of  stewardship  is  no  less  than  being 
faithful  over  that  which  is  least  in  the  way  of  in- 
come as  you  would  wish  the  wealthiest  parishioner 
to  be  faithful  over  that  which  is  much.  In  a  word 
the  clergy  must  show  the  example  of  conscientious 


122  APT  AND  MEET 

sense  of  what  they  have  by  conscientious  appro- 
priation of  some  part  of  it  to  God's  work,  if  they 
would  expect  to  influence  their  people  to  do  it. 
Thou  that  teachest  giving  by  principle  to  God,  dost 
thou  give  by  principle  ?  The  blessing  of  it  can  be 
tested  by  even  the  small  salary,  and  the  lesson  of  it 
should  be  learned  in  the  Divinity  School  if  not 
earlier.  Estimates  of  expense  should  include  some- 
thing for  systematic  offering,  something  for  God, 
however  small  from  small  resource.  The  Holy 
Communion  gives  even  a  sacramental  character  to 
the  high  duty  as  we  place  something  of  our  own 
avowedly  in  the  oblations.  And  the  secret  of 
right-mindedness  in  money  matters  all  through,  and 
of  the  sweetness  of  giving  and  leading  others  to  give 
is  found  nowhere  as  in  that  realization  of  steward- 
ship deepened,  sanctified  and  empowered  in  our 
learning  what  it  is  to  offer  of  "  our  own  "  just  as 
we  offer  "  ourselves,  our  souls  and  bodies  "  in  direct 
sacramental  association  with  the  "  One  Offering  "  of 
Him  who  gave  Himself  for  us.  May  you  by  the 
grace  of  God  give  that  sentiment  from  an  ancient 
Liturgy  which  encircles  the  rim  of  our  chapel  alms 
bason  ^o\  ra  Id  dno  tq)v  Imv^  illumination  in  every  life 
and  every  ministry  which  goes  out  from  these  walls. 


TACT 

Laymen  may  be  pardoned  for  sometimes  wonder- 
ing in  their  utilitarian  moments  why  it  would  not 
be  a  good  idea  for  Divinity  Schools  to  have  a  De- 
partment on  Tact  somewhat  as  West  Point  has  one 
on  Tactics.  Vestries  generally  put  that  among  the 
first  qualifications  when  they  are  looking  around  to 
fill  vacancies.  The  lack  of  tact  is  one  of  the  first 
things  you  are  apt  to  hear  whether  justly  or  other- 
wise assigned  as  a  reason  for  not  getting  on  in  the 
Ministry.  And  so  though  in  the  perspective  its 
place  in  relation  to  deeper  qualifications  may  easily 
be  exaggerated,  and  though  I  have  never  heard  of 
a  manual  upon  it,  nor  a  professor's  Chair  endowed 
for  it,  it  is  obvious  that  any  Training  School  for 
the  Ministry  can  be  legitimately  expected  to  have 
some  answer  to  the  question.  What  are  you  doing 
about  it  ?  The  test  of  the  flying  machine  is  whether 
it  will  fly.  And  the  world  with  reason  looks  to  the 
ministry  to  see  whether  it  ministers.  Theory,  ma- 
chinery, buoyancy,  equipment  for  sky wardness  may 
all  be  carefully  wrought  out  in  preparation  for  the 
air-ship's  fulfilling  its  claim.     But  if  it  flops  and 

123 


124  APT   AND   MEET 

flounders  and  gets  out  of  gear  and  tangled  in  its 
handling,  down  it  must  go,  as  one  did  the  other 
day  simply  because  the  operator  as  he  said  turned 
a  certain  lever  the  wrong  way.  And  it  is  just  that 
turning  some  lever  of  the  delicate  machinery  of 
parish  administration  "the  wrong  way"  which 
oftentimes  exposes  a  lack  of  tact  and  wrecks  real 
usefulness.  And  for  purposes  of  producing  results 
— parish  "  pragmatism  " — if  we  wish  a  high-sound- 
ing term — tact  might  well  be  defined  as  skill  in 
putting  on  power  with  the  right  turns  of  the  right 
levers.  If  you  ever  come  across  a  book  entitled 
"The  Curate  of  Cumberworth  and  the  Vicar  of 
Eoost "  you  will  enjoy  the  clever  satire  of  doing 
just  the  opposite  of  this  both  on  the  part  of  the 
fresh  curate  and  of  the  seasoned  vicar.  You  will 
readily  grant  that  a  Divinity  School  ought  to  have 
something  to  say  about  this  branch  of  getting  on, 
but  what  ? 

For  the  most  part  it  is  a  question  which  simply 
must  be  passed  up  beyond  any  chair  of  teaching 
and  any  curriculum  to  the  man  himself.  Even  in 
such  an  attempt  to  counsel  as  this,  the  suggestions 
must  perhaps  seem  diffuse  and  of  the  sort  of  which 
a  man  says  to  himself,  "  I  do  not  seem  to  get  much 
out  of  them."  To  be  sure  hints  on  pastoral  work, 
and  on  the  practical  preaching  and  teaching  of 


TACT  125 

what  is  absorbed  in  tlie  course,  enable  every  chair 
to  contribute  something  to  that  resultant  of  char- 
acter which  the  French  call  savoir  faire.  But 
knack,  you  after  all  have  to  acquire  yourselves. 
And  when  you  once  realize  that,  you  will  appreci- 
ate that  here  and  now  is  the  opportunity  to  begin, 
however  much  you  may  have  to  learn  of  tact  by  the 
actual  contact  with  people  later.  And  perhaps  this 
is  one  of  the  most  valuable  counsels  I  can  give  you. 
And  the  real  Scriptural  formula  for  tact  is  the 
Master's  own  maxim  to  His  Apostles,  when  He  sent 
them  forth  "  as  sheep  in  the  midst  of  wolves " : 
"  Be  ye  therefore  wise  as  serpents  and  harmless  as 
doves."  They  were  never  meant  to  crawl  as  ser- 
pents nor  to  coo  as  doves,  to  just  one  point  of  re- 
semblance in  each  case  the  counsel  confined  itself. 
The  wisdom  of  the  serpent  is  guarded  against  the 
venom  of  the  serpent  by  the  cautioning  of  the 
dove's  trait  of  harmlessness,  and  the  simplicity  of 
the  dove  was  to  be  supplemented  by  the  nimbleness 
of  the  serpent.  The  correlation  of  these  two  traits 
belongs  to  self-cultivation  in  the  graces  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  That  makes  balance  and  saves  one-sidedness 
which  sometimes  tries  to  mask  itself  under  tact. 
Mere  cleverness  without  that  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
for  which  the  dove  may  happily  be  the  symbol — 
that  gift  of  "  thinking  no  evil,"  as  a  part  of  growth 


126  APT  AND   MEET 

in  the  Spiritual  virtue  of  love — may  lead  to  thinly 
disguised  "  foxiness  "  or  craft  and  casuistry  which 
the  world  itself  distrusts.  Good-natured  or  lazy 
trying  to  hurt  nobody's  feelings  or  dealings,  as  a 
chronic  time-server  without  discernment  of  duty  or 
principle,  makes  a  sort  of  fool's  paradise  of  a  field, 
bound  to  have  a  rude  awakening.  But  between 
priestcraft  and  mere  honhorame^  by  God's  grace, 
every  man  can  school  himself  into  that  gracious 
education  in  right-mindedness  and  directness  of  up- 
right aim  which  is  in  its  true  realization,  tact.  Or 
to  use  an  old  proverb  it  is  the  learning  to  "  conse- 
crate common  sense."  Even  if  one  is  not  of  that 
class  which  seems  to  be  born  to  tact  there  is  no 
reason  to  despair,  the  grace  of  God  rightly  used  will 
be  sufficient  to  acquire  it.  Tact  may  be  called  a 
sort  of  composite  gift.  And  one  who  habitually 
prays  as  bidden  in  the  Ordinal  for  "  the  heavenly 
assistance  of  the  Holy  Ghost "  in  the  spirit  of  the 
hymn 

^*  Come  Holy  Spirit,  heavenly  dove,  . 
With  all  Thy  quickening  powers," 

finds  a  result  in  ministerial  character  which  blends 
gentleness  and  force  in  a  new  sense  of  progress  in 
consecrated  tact.  It  becomes  veritably  a  spiritual 
gift  to  which  any  one  may  aspire. 


TACT  127 

This  kind  that  cometh  forth  from  such  intelligent 
self-training  soon  justifies  itself  in  experience.  For 
example  it  enables  one  to  smooth  the  way  of  the 
work  by  a  finer  sense  of  consideration  for  others 
and  a  finer  perspective  in  the  importance  of  issues 
that  arise.  Tact  forestalls  the  wishes  and  even  the 
whims  of  others  and  so  prevents  many  an  issue  of 
weak  or  wilful  human  nature.  If  questions  arise  it 
can  always  pick  out  important  ones  from  unimpor- 
tant ones  and  however  necessary  it  may  be  to  stand 
by  the  former,  it  never  agitates  the  latter  all  out 
of  proportion  to  their  importance.  The  eccentric 
Yicar  of  Morwenstow,  worthy  as  he  was  in  so  many 
ways,  and  wearing  a  medal  made  of  a  nugget  sent 
him  by  a  California  sailor  whose  life  he  had  saved, 
as  of  many  others,  on  that  rock-bound  Cornish 
coast,  set  his  congregation  all  by  the  ears  over  the 
question  whether  the  church  roof  should  be  repaired 
with  slate  or  with  shingles,  insisting  upon  the  latter 
because  wood  was  used  in  the  ark  and  for  the  cross ! 
And  how  many  a  parish  breeze  is  raised  over  matters 
with  no  particular  principle  involved  where  a  dis- 
creet eye  to  the  really  main  points  would  have 
waived  and  saved  it  all  in  the  interest  of  greater 
issues.  St.  Paul  had  something  like  that  in  mind 
when  he  wrote  to  the  Komans,  "  For  meat  destroy 
not  the  work  of  God." 


128  APT   AND   MEET 

And  tact  in  personal  affairs  is  very  valuable.  It 
will  set  a  watch  before  the  mouth  and  keep  the  door 
of  the  lips.  It  will  save  callowness  in  the  curate. 
It  will  be  careful  not  to  bore  parishioners  or  friends 
with  long  calls  or  long  dissertations  in  private  or 
public.  It  will  impel  true  priestly  breeding  in 
gentle  nanners  and  thoughtful  words  and  deeds  and 
social  amenities  and  true  culture.  It  will  assimilate 
the  bearing  to  the  classic  ideals  of  the  best  types  of 
Clergymen  as  they  are  portrayed  in  English  litera- 
ture in  Chaucer,  Herbert,  Goldsmith,  Keble  and 
biography  all  along.  It  would  soon  make  extinct 
any  specimen  of  a  clerical  churl. 

And  even  in  that  so  determining,  if  so  delicate,  a 
matter  to  touch  upon  as  marriage,  something  very 
like  this  sound  tact  counts  for  much  both  in  useful- 
ness and  happiness.  We  need  not  here  enter  into  the 
wider  question  of  the  vocation  to  a  single  or  a  mar- 
ried life  further  than  to  recognize  its  deep  search- 
ings  in  both  directions  to  a  conscientious  mind. 
But  if  the  devotion  to  the  single  life  be  not  the  voca- 
tion that  seems  to  be  binding — and  I  suppose  in 
more  than  one  Seminary  the  after  happy  marriages 
of  their  members  show  that  "  celibate  clubs  "  may 
prematurely  avow  themselves — good  sense  and  tact 
will  dictate  some  things  to  him  that  will  love 
married  life  and  see  good  days.     He  will  not  choose 


•FTHE 
V       ^  OF 

TACT         ""^'^yiP^ai^      129 

a  companion  to  whom  the  clergyman's  life  will  be 
uncongenial,  or  who  will  not  be  in  full  accord  with 
his  priestly  vow  to  frame  and  fashion  his  family 
as  well  as  himself  according  to  the  Doctrines  of 
Christ  and  to  make  both  himself  and  his  family, 
as  much  as  in  him  lieth,  wholesome  examples  and 
patterns  to  the  flock  of  Christ.  He  will  not  marry 
until  he  can  see  a  reasonable  hope  of  ways  and 
means.  Once  married  he  will  honor  the  wife  with 
his  best  rather  than  his  fretful  side  and  let  no  busy 
parish  stir  crowd  out  her  due  in  his  home,  as  he 
realizes  how  burdens  may  be  there  shared  and 
lightened  and  the  joy  of  the  work  deepened 
when,  as  King  James  intimated  to  the  Puritan  Dr. 
Eainolds  as  he  was  objecting  to  some  expression 
in  the  Marriage  Service,  he  has  "  a  good  wife  him- 
self." 

That,  however,  which  will  put  tact  to  its  full 
priestly  test  and  so  prove  its  highest  value  in  your 
ministry,  will  be  its  exercise  in  fulfilling  your  vow 
to  *^  maintain  and  set  forward  as  much  as  lieth  in 
you,  quietness,  peace  and  love,  among  all  Christian 
people,  and  especially  among  them  that  are  or  shall 
be  committed  to  your  charge."  This  is  that  which 
solemnly  binds  you  to  the  unfailing  duty,  and  it 
carries  with  it  the  choice  blessing  of  the  peace- 
maker.   Note  most  earnestly  that  it  is  no  mere 


130  APT   AND   MEET 

preference  nor  incident  on  the  circumference  of  your 
work.  It  lies  at  the  heart  of  things.  Not  only- 
must  the  one  in  charge  of  a  congregation  not  be  the 
cause  through  his  carelessness  or  lack  of  tact,  of 
alienations  and  disruptions  or  getting  a  condition  of 
"sixes  and  sevens,"  but  by  all  that  is  sacred  he  is 
put  in  his  position  to  eliminate  so  far  as  he  can  all 
such  tendencies  to  strife.  He  is  no  passenger  in  the 
parish  in  these  matters,  his  post  is  a  steering  one. 
He  must  of  course  take  things  as  he  finds  them,  but 
woe  if  he  fails  to  realize  that  in  these  respects  of 
promoting  quietness,  peace  and  love  he  is  not  by  any 
means  to  leave  things  as  he  finds  them.  He  must  ex- 
pect to  find  unreasonable  people  that  jar  him  and  jar 
others.  Then  envy  and  strife,  confusion  and  evil- 
working  are  ever  cropping  out.  He  may  deplore 
in  himself  qualities  that  prompt  him  to  return  in 
kind  or  to  adopt  drastic  measures,  in  fact  to  be  a 
touchy  parson  or  a  peppery  one.  But  just  there 
either  the  mischief  begins  for  his  work,  or  he  rises 
to  his  true  level  as  a  priest  and  is  on  his  mettle  to 
use  all  the  tact  and  grace  he  can  summon  to  bring 
about  better  understandings,  mollify  situations 
and  sink  his  own  personal  feelings  in  the  high  en- 
deavor to  have  a  change  come  over  the  face  of  the 
congregation  as  it  so  often  does  with  kindly  and 
patient  and  prayerful  dealing.    That  is  tact  in  its 


TACT  131 

noblest  and  sweetest  expression  in  the  work.  Pastor 
and  people  come  to  have  a  sort  of  feeling  of  blessing 
as  if  Christ  had  Himself  calmed  the  troubled  surface 
with  His  own  "  Peace  be  still." 


XVII 

<< GETTING  OUT  AMONG  THE  PEOPLE '^ 

This  phrase  is  exactly  quoted  from  an  up-to- 
date  layman's  lips  to  express  his  idea  of  the  trait  of 
being  a  good  pastor.  It  smacks  of  this  stirring 
century  as  that  quaint  caption  of  one  of  George 
Herbert's  chapters  in  his  classic  "Priest  to  the 
Temple,"  "  The  Parson  in  Circuit "  did  of  his 
rural  conditions.  And  though  the  modern  clergy- 
man may  cover  distance  in  an  automobile  while  the 
devoted  Priest  of  Bemerton  must  trudge  on  foot  or 
take  the  gig,  parishioners'  hearts  and  priest's  hearti- 
ness in  their  work  must  come  close  together  with 
the  same  ideals  if  the  congregation  is  to  be  a  true 
cure  of  souls.  The  Ordinal  is  very  specific  and 
insistent  as  to  pastoral  visiting.  Embodied  in  one 
of  the  Deacon's  vows  is  the  requirement  "  it  is  his 
oflB^ce,  when  provision  is  so  made,  to  search  for  the 
sick,  poor  and  impotent  people  of  the  Parish." 
In  like  manner  the  Priest  solemnly  promises  "  to 
use  both  public  and  private  monitions  and  exhorta- 
tions, as  well  to  the  sick  as  to  the  whole,  within 
your  cures."  He  is  charged  "  to  seek  for  Christ's 
sheep  that  are  dispersed  abroad,  and  for  His  chil- 

132 


"getting  out  among  the  people"      133 

dren  who  are  in  the  midst  of  this  naughty  world." 
And  so  the  old  saying, "  A  house-going  parson  makes 
a  Church-going  people  "  loses  nothing  of  its  value 
by  its  age,  if  the  Ordinal  is  sound  in  its  provisions. 
The  layman  is  right  when  he  says,  "  We  need  a 
pastor  who  will  get  out  among  his  people,"  by  all 
the  best  traditions  of  the  Ministry  as  well  as  by  a 
present-day  utilitarian  standard  of  producing  re- 
sults. And  this  is,  by  no  means,  to  overlook  other 
gifts  of  vocation  including  the  cloister  call  to  per- 
sonal and  priestly  intercession. 

Of  course  there  must  be  good  sense  and  clear 
and  consecrated  purpose  in  parish  calling.  Merely 
social  calling  has  its  place  and  demands  and  no  one 
should  be  more  punctilious  about  it  than  the  clergy- 
man who  generally  starts  with  the  presumption 
that  he  is  a  gentleman.  But  social  calling  at  the 
home  of  a  parishioner,  on  lines  of  congenial  tastes 
or  associations,  has  at  best  only  indirect  relation 
to  the  higher  duty  and  if  not  done  with  discretion 
may  resolve  itself  into  falling  into  a  habit  of  visit- 
ing only  a  small  round  of  parishioners,  and  that 
with  little  or  no  real  character  of  parish  visiting 
about  it.  Then  on  the  other  hand  parish  calling 
may  be  done  in  a  perfunctory,  professional  sort  of 
way  making  the  whole  thing  a  kind  of  boredom 
to  all  concerned.     The  clerical  visitor  may  put  it  in 


134  APT  AND   MEET 

his  routine  as  a  matter  of  so  many  names  to  be 
checked  on  his  list  of  parishioners  and  so  many- 
buttons  for  him  to  press  at  front  doors  while  those 
within  "do  the  rest,"  and  with  a  sense  of  relief 
when  no  one  is  at  home.  With  anything  like  that 
the  pastor  is  apt  to  get  out  among  his  people  as 
might  the  gas  meter  inspector  on  his  regular  beat, 
to  read  the  register  of  something, — in  his  case  the 
number  of  parish  calls  he  can  make.  No,  profitable 
parish  visiting  is  no  less  than  a  sacred  function  of 
the  high  office,  if  the  Ordinal  is  not  all  a  mistake. 
There  must  be,  regular  habits  and  times  of  it.  It 
must  be  initiated  and  constantly  attended  with 
prayer, — prayer  for  the  visitor  and  prayer  for  those 
visited,  prayer  for  guidance  in  advising  and  teach- 
ing, comforting  and  meeting  difficulties  and  doubts, 
prayer  for  individuals  and  special  trials  and  temp- 
tations and  conditions  of  individuals  and  homes, 
prayer  in  the  closet  before  starting,  prayer  at  the 
door  in  the  spirit  of  the  benediction  with  which  the 
Office  for  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick  opens,  "  Peace 
be  to  this  house  and  to  all  that  dwell  in  it,"  prayer 
if  practicable  before  leaving  and  prayer  after  the 
day's  calling  for  its  omissions  and  its  blessings. 
Religious  literature  must  be  studied  to  have  some- 
thing handy  in  the  pocket  to  leave  upon  topics  de- 
veloped in  the  conversation,  or  to  send  later.    Con- 


135 

versation  must  be  led  when  practicable — and  tact 
and  the  finer  sense  will  guard  one  against  anything 
artificial  or  intrusive  as  they  will  find  ways  of 
evoking  confidences  and  hunger  to  talk  upon 
serious  matters  which  may  be  shrinking  under  even 
an  apparently  indifferent  exterior — to  the  deeper 
matters  of  personal  religion.  Obviously  this  ideal 
must  come  under  many  limitations.  Many  a  call 
there  must  be,  when  the  presence  of  other  callers,  or 
the  passing  mood  and  like  things  will  leave  only  the 
evidence  of  the  call  itself — and  that  is  by  no  means 
nil — as  an  expression  of  your  pastoral  heart.  But  if 
you  keep  a  careful  list  of  your  people  in  your  calling 
book,  revised  always  to  date,  and  mark  the  dates  of 
your  visits  and  frequently  consult  it  to  keep  yourself 
informed  and  keen  as  to  the  homes  you  have  not 
visited,  and  then  when  you  make  your  calls,  make 
them  with  some  such  high  purpose  as  I  have  tried  to 
indicate  in  the  ideals  to  which  I  have  referred,  there 
will  be  no  danger  of  your  laymen  deploring  the  fact 
that  you  have  many  good  qualities  but  "somehow  you 
do  not  seem  to  get  out  among  your  people  ! "  And 
if  you  say  how  am  I  in  all  the  occupations  of  my 
parish,  its  thousand  and  one  pressing  concerns,  its 
committees,  its  time  for  study  and  its  preparation 
for  the  pulpit  to  find  time  free  for  all  this,  the 
answer  can  only  be  that  the  very  vows  of  the  min- 


136  APT   AND   MEET 

istry  put  it  among  your  primary  duties.  And  better 
find  departments  whicii  will  relieve  you  of  some 
of  those  other  things  not  stressed  in  the  Ordinal, 
and  get  down  and  get  back  to  this.  Furthermore 
you  need  it,  as  was  said  of  Charles  Kingsley,  that 
"  it  was  from  his  regular  house  to  house  visiting  in 
the  week  still  more  than  his  Church  Services  that 
he  acquired  his  power,"  in  his  first  building  up  the 
sadly  neglected  parish  at  Eversley.  He  needed  it 
"  for  his  own  heart's  sake  as  well  as  for  their  souls' 
sake."  And  I  believe  many  an  afternoon  which 
may  mark  a  temperamental  dread  of  leaving  the 
study  as  you  start  out  resolutely  for  the  calls,  will 
verily  glow  at  the  end  as  you  have  been  reading 
in  the  lives  of  your  people  lessons  of  trust  and 
humility,  as  well  as  needs  of  your  message  that 
inspire  your  own  life  as  well  as  your  sermons.  The 
practical  "  modernism "  of  parish  pressure  which 
would  lose,  or  justify  the  loss  of  this  real  joy  of 
the  ministry  and  this  real  contribution  to  the 
heart  and  appropriation  of  its  message,  is  a 
phase  of  our  Church  life  to  be  very  carefully  scruti- 
nized. 

But  besides  this  systematic  calling,  and  besides 
mingling  with  the  people  in  civic  and  like  move- 
ments which  lie  outside  of  our  present  theme,  there 
is  the  whole  opportunity  for  special  calling,  in  con- 


"GETTING   OUT  AMONG  THE   PEOPLE"         137 

firmation  work,  in  affliction  of  any  sort — and  no 
faithful  pastor  will  let  many  hours  slip  by  after 
hearing  of  a  parishioner's  trouble  before  he  is  with 
him  if  he  can  reach  him, — in  the  special  joys  of  the 
homes  and  in  any  of  the  exigencies  of  life  when  an 
alert  pastor  can  show  his  interest  and  love  for  his 
people  and  so  bind  them  to  the  Church,  Never  let 
your  people  under  such  circumstances  wonder  why 
you  have  not  been  to  see  them,  after  you  have  knowl- 
edge of  the  experience  that  has  come  to  them. 

But  the  "  making  a  Conscience  "  of  the  Visitation 
of  the  Sick  should  have  a  special  word  of  its  own. 
That  is  a  test  of  your  whole  pastoral  interest.  You 
can  hardly  have  much  heart  in  your  ministry  with- 
out having  some  heart  in  that.  Any  kind  of  get- 
ting out  among  your  people  will  not  count  for  much 
unless  you  get  out  among  the  sick-rooms  of  your 
people.  This  implies  familiarity  with  the  principles 
which  underlie  the  Office  in  the  Prayer  Book  for 
the  "Visitation  of  the  Sick,"  and  for  the  "Com- 
munion of  the  Sick."  The  rubrics  in  those  Offices 
should  be  studied  not  only  for  themselves  but  for 
their  history  and  their  hints.  Tou  may  seldom  use 
the  Office  for  the  Visitation  of  the  Sick  as  a  whole, 
but  it  is  full  of  suggestions  for  sick  visiting,  as  for 
example  affording  you  themes  for  your  talk  with 
sick  people  in  the  exhortations,  and  for  interces- 


138  .  APT  AND   MEET 

sions  in  the  prayers,  and  for  counseling  upon  ques- 
tions which  may  rest  upon  the  mind  of  the  sick  as 
to  forgiveness,  disposition  of  worldly  affairs,  etc. 
With  the  mind  saturated  with  such  Prayer  Book 
principles  you  will  learn  how  to  use  the  sick-room 
to  the  best  spiritual  advantage,  shaping  prayers 
which  you  may  wish  to  adapt  to  special  circum- 
stances, guiding  you  in  the  selection  of  Scriptural 
and  other  reading  and  enabling  you  to  do  the  right 
thing  in  emergencies  or  when  the  time  must  be  very 
short. 

This  will  also  train  you  into  sane  and  intelligent 
and  charitable  judgment  about  matters  which  lie 
outside  of  the  Prayer  Book,  or  in  which  the  Prayer 
Book  prescribes  optional  courses.  Within  the  legit- 
imate bounds  you  will  have  an  open  mind,  or  if 
you  have  a  fixed  conviction,  a  charitable  mind  to- 
wards those  who  dijBfer  from  you  as  to  the  mooted 
matters  of  unction,  confession,  and  the  like.  What- 
ever your  decided  standpoint  you  will  take  it  from 
the  high  interest  in  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the 
sick,  and  not  from  mere  prejudice  or  impervious- 
ness  of  opinion.  The  question  with  you  will  be  of 
conveying  the  utmost  comfort  of  Christ  and  the 
Church  to  the  sick  one  through  your  ministry,  with 
an  anxiety  that  nothing  may  fail  of  that  through 
your  lack  of  calling  or  of  turning  every  call  to  best 


"getting  out  among  the  people"      139 

account.  In  a  word  you  will  deepen  in  the  hope  to 
become  more  and  more  a  sick-room  expert  in  your 
ministry. 

And  this  opens  up  the  new  purview  which  seems 
coming  to  the  ministry.  What  is  known  as 
"  Psychotheraphy  "  is  rapidly  developing  a  "  move- 
ment "  and  producing  a  literature  to  which  it  seems 
to  me  no  clergyman  can  be  indiflferent.  Having  its 
recent  disclosure  a  good  deal  in  the  enterprise  of 
one  of  our  own  prominent  clergymen  and  one 
especially  qualified  by  ability,  training  and  posi- 
tion to  associate  with  himself  the  best  skill  and 
professional  judgment  of  the  medical  profession,  the 
text-book  of  it,  "  Eeligion  and  Medicine  "  is  having 
a  wide  reading  as  will  the  other  expert  writing 
upon  it  that  will  follow.  It  all  marks  something  of 
a  new  era  in  the  possibilities  of  dealing  with  the 
sick.  It  bids  fair  to  recast  methods  and  mark 
progressive  science  both  in  the  realm  of  physiology 
and  psychology.  It  has  already  evolved  new 
coordination  between  the  physician  of  the  body  and 
the  pastor  of  souls  and  unified  both  as  co-workers 
for  the  healing  of  the  personality  which  includes 
both.  We  may  dream  of  its  getting  the  Church  it- 
self more  out  among  the  people  in  its  wise  extension 
as  a  movement.  If  it  is  to  do  that  you  of  the 
coming  clergy  must  be  drawn  into  the  study  of  it. 


140  APT   AND   MEET 

For  the  clergy  at  large  it  is  important  to  widen 
and  deepen  this  study  stage  of  it.  And  so  its  ap- 
proved literature  should  command  your  earnest  at- 
tention. Perhaps  our  Divinity  Schools  as  well  as 
our  Medical  Colleges  may  find  it  a  necessary  part  of 
the  curriculum  in  the  near  future.  Its  periodicals 
will  submit  it  to  all  the  challenge  and  criticism  with 
which  the  age  confronts  new  movements.  That 
will  all  be  to  its  advantage  as  a  test  of  its  real  place 
in  the  clergyman's  work  with  the  sick.  But  those 
most  expert  in  it  thus  far,  and  those  knowing  most 
of  it  are  most  positive  in  their  caution  to  go  slowly 
in  the  matter.  They  realize  how  essential  is  the 
study  and  the  expert  knowledge  and  indeed  the  ex- 
periment in  its  untried  fields  by  those  competent. 
I  only  briefly  refer  to  it  here  and  now  to  recognize 
it  as  already  having  justified  its  claim  to  such  study 
in  any  wide  realization  of  what  the  ministry  owes 
the  sick,  and  as  having  a  place  in  any  counsel  upon 
your  sick  ministrations  when  you  take  your  place  as 
clergymen  endeavoring  to  be  apt  and  meet  for  the 
work  of  to-day.  Though  in  some  respects  a  "  new 
thing  under  the  sun  "  it  bears  marks  of  having  in  it 
something  as  old  as  the  Master's  maxims  and  as  He 
went  about  doing  good,  we  may  find  in  it  another 
means  of  getting  out  among  the  people. 


XVIII 

<<THE  CLOTH" 

"Young  men,  likewise,  exhort  to  be  sober- 
minded."  Translated  into  the  speech  of  modern 
youth  this  counsel  of  St.  Paul  would  probably 
amount  to — "Be  level-headed."  But  in  addition 
to  that  common  caution  to  young  men  to  know 
"  what  is  what "  in  the  best  making  of  their  young 
manhood,  keeping  clear  of  pitfalls  and  treading 
carefully  in  right  paths  of  progress,  St.  Paul  goes 
further  with  one  who  is  to  take  Holy  Orders. 
Likewise  must  the  deacons  be  grave.  And  here  we 
come  upon  a  word  confessedly  needing  some  study 
of  the  original  New  Testament  word  back  of  it 
in  order  to  catch  its  exact  force.  Trench,  after  a 
critical  examination  of  the  word  (Tefiv6($  as  found  four 
times  in  the  Epistles  of  Timothy  and  Titus  and  its 
cognate  (refivoTT)^^  as  found  three  times  in  the  same 
Epistles,  says  it  must  be  owned  that  "  grave  "  and 
"  gravity  "  are  renderings  which  fail  to  cover  the 
full  meaning  of  their  original.  Malvolio  in  Twelfth 
Night  is  grave  but  his  very  gravity  is  itself  ridicu- 
lous, and  the  word  we  want  is  one  in  which  the 

sense  of  gravity  and  dignity,  and  of  these  as  invit- 

141 


142  APT   AND   MEET 

ing  reverence,  is  combined :  a  word  which  I  fear 
we  may  look  for  long  without  finding.^  The  diflft- 
culty  seems  to  be  to  fit  two  meanings  to  one  Eng- 
lish term,  as  if  to  measure  twins  for  a  single  suit  of 
clothes.  And  the  quality  identified  in  priestly 
character  is  itself  easier  to  recognize  than  to  de- 
scribe, a  subtile  something  majestic  and  awe-inspir- 
ing in  its  more  marked  possession,  as  it  was  said  for 
example  to  exist  in  Pusey,  to  whom  this  very  Greek 
word  especially  appealed.  I  think  I  have  read 
somewhere  of  his  having  used  the  expression  "  that 
blessed  (refivoTTj^.^^  Trench  tells  us  that  "  in  profane 
Greek  ffefiuSg  is  a  constant  epithet  of  the  gods. 
...  It  is  used  also  constantly  to  qualify  such 
things  as  pertain  to,  or  otherwise  stand  in  any  very 
near  relation  with  the  heavenly  world."  St.  Paul 
and  St.  Barnabas,  we  may  believe,  had  it  when  the 
people  at  Lystra  would  have  done  sacrifice  unto 
them.  St.  Peter  and  St.  John  had  it  when  the 
Council  at  Jerusalem  before  which  they  had  been 
haled  took  knowledge  of  them  that  they  had  been 
with  Jesus.  It  was,  we  may  reasonably  think,  in 
the  look  of  St.  Stephen  when  in  the  fore-dawn  of 
his  martyr  glory,  all  that  sat  in  that  other  Council, 
looking  steadfastly  on  him,  saw  his  face  as  it  had 
been  the  face  of  an  angel. 

*  '*  Synonyms  of  the  New  Testament,"  p.  348. 


143 

Now  when  the  ministry  is  spoken  of  as  "The 
Cloth  "  it  is  the  world's  way  of  designating  it  as  a 
class — ^knowing  it  by  its  uniform  so  to  speak.  The 
phrase  originating  from  a  distinguishing  garb  con- 
notes the  calling  as  a  whole  as  it  is,  even  according 
to  every-day  standards,  supposed  to  be  set  apart  for 
especial  functions  of  well-doing  and  leadership. 
Outward  badges  and  wardrobes  will  show  this  ac- 
cording to  tastes.  There  will  be  extremes,  the  in- 
tensely clerical  and  the  as  intensely  secular  tailor- 
ing, both  of  which  have  free  play  in  our  American 
life,  the  crowd  in  the  street  scarcely  giving  a  second 
thought  to  the  conspicuous  cut  of  the  severely  ec- 
clesiastical make-up  and  swallowing  up  as  one  of 
itself  the  other  cleric  who  as  decidedly  wishes  to 
dress  like  other  people  and  sometimes  even  outdoes 
the  man  on  the  street  in  flamboyant  neckwear  and 
sporting  costume.  So  far  as  the  fabric  and  fashion 
of  "  the  cloth  "  are  concerned,  there  must  be  the  play 
of  preference,  only  the  clerical  dandy  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  unclerical  disguise  on  the  other,  do 
divert  people's  minds  from  main  questions  and  when 
one  betrays  an  undue  mind  upon  the  place  of 
professional  dress,  and  the  other  is  tempted  to  dis- 
semble his  calling  in  affecting  a  garb  which  will 
save  him  from  ever  being  taken  for  a  parson,  there 
is  some  serious  thinking  to  be  done.    And  so  it  is 


144  APT   AND   MEET 

with  outward  mannerisms  in  the  service  and  in  the 
street.  I  am  not  referring  to  varieties  of  habits  of 
real  reverence  nor  of  ordinary  marks  of  individu- 
ality, but  to  mere  mannerisms  that  provoke  com- 
ment upon  clergymen  as  clergymen.  I  suppose  no 
one  would  wish  a  "  Cuddeson  stoop  "  or  a  dramatic 
reading  of  the  lessons  to  be  the  first  thing  in  the 
current  small  talk  by  which  he  is  known  to  be  dif- 
ferent from  others,  but  alas,  it  is  sometimes  even  so. 
All  this,  however,  you  will  readily  appreciate  be- 
longs to  the  outside  and  does  not  touch  the  real 
heart  of  what  is  called,  and  is,  "  reverence  for  the 
cloth."  To  evoke  that  and  to  hold  it,  the  man  in 
the  ministry  must  have  in  some  degree  in  his  per- 
sonality that  very  quality  which  St.  Paul  puts  at 
the  threshold  of  Holy  Orders,  so  inadequately  trans- 
lated "  gravity."  He  must  in  some  measure  attain 
to  (Tefivdg  and  by  God's  grace  find  an  atmosphere  for 
his  life  and  work,  of  trefivdTTjg,  At  sight  then,  though 
they  may  never  be  able  to  analyze  it  or  express  it, 
his  people,  yes  all  people  will  recognize  that  he  has 
something  which  interprets  to  them  the  true  classi- 
fication of  the  cloth.  He  will  illustrate  Emerson's 
saying  that  "  men  of  character  are  the  conscience 
of  society."  He  will  be  one  to  whom  they  will 
wish,  as  they  say,  "  to  tie  up  to  in  trouble."  He 
will  possess  something  which  will  impress  them  as 


145 

"  having  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him."  He  will 
make  good  his  vocation  and  not  a  "  white  choker  " 
but  a  white  soul  will  be  his  credential,  not  profes- 
sionalism but  priestly  character  will  be  his  con- 
sciousness of  his  "  cloth." 

There  is  a  profound  sense  in  which  the  Holy- 
Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  the  spirit  of  man, 
humbled  with  his  own  un worthiness,  that  he  is  "  a 
man  apart."  "Yet  not  I  but  the  grace  of  God 
which  is  with  me  "  is  his  own  resting  in  the  rever- 
ence for  his  office.  The  spirit  of  heaviness  which 
must  now  and  then  threaten  him  in  the  personal 
shortcomings  in  his  work  finds  in  that  mystic  wit- 
ness the  garment  of  peace  as  the  inner  symbol  of 
"  the  cloth." 

But  while  priestly  character-growths  have  this 
mystery  of  bloom  and  fruitage  that  we  can  experi- 
ence but  not  explore,  there  are  some  plain  facts 
which  are  very  closely  related  to  it  of  which  we 
should  take  cognizance  here.  Two,  at  any  rate,  of 
the  marks  of  this  healthy  growth  are  the  deepening 
in  1st,  the  joy  of  service  and  2d,  the  peace  of  God. 

"With  Wynn's  charming  chapters  on  "The  Joy 
of  the  Ministry"  I  need  not  do  more  here  than 
commend  to  you  the  reading,  and  the  rereading  of 
that  book.  While  the  truest  leaders  of  men  are 
striking  as  a  very  note  for  our  new  century  ideals  of 


146  APT  AND   MEET 

Service,  as  in  the  central  theme  of  the  Encyclical  of 
the  last  Lambeth  Conference,  the  Ministry  soon  car- 
ries one  on  from  the  duty  of  service  to  its  privilege 
and  its  joy.  "  God,  whose  I  am  and  whom  I 
serve  "  was  the  sustaining  thought  of  the  Apostle  in 
a  dark  hour.  The  very  name  Diaconate  as  it 
emphasizes  service  betokens  the  true  key  to  strike 
in  the  overture  to  the  music  of  the  ministry.  And 
that  ideal  should  take  possession  of  you  more  and 
more  here.  Cast  your  musings  for  your  first  field 
of  work  after  ordination  not  in  terms  of  what  kind 
of  a  living  shall  I  get,  but,  as  I  believe  you  will, 
what  kind  of  a  serving  can  I  give.  Fix  that  habit 
of  looking  at  your  ministry  and  you  are  already 
cultivating  the  ffsfivoTT)^  of  the  priest. 

And  then  closely  akin  to  that  joy  of  service  is 
the  peace  of  God.  No  priest  who  pronounces  that 
in  the  blessing  of  "  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth 
all  understanding,"  should  fail  to  appreciate  how 
much  he  needs  that  very  blessing  to  apply  to  his 
own  life  and  work,  that  it  may  keep — or  literally 
buttress — him  in  heart  and  mind  in  the  knowledge 
and  love  of  God.  The  saintly  Bishop  Andrewes 
following  precedents  prayed  against  "  the  luke- 
warmness  of  Accidy  " — and  the  very  strangeness  of 
the  word  will  enable  us  to  understand  how  it  once 
for  a  while  dropped  out  of  the  dictionary.     He  put 


"the  cloth"  147 

it  among  the  seven  principal  sins,  as  a  sin  lying  at 
the  source  of  other  sins.  It  seems  to  mean  a  fagged 
spirit,  listless  and  weary  of  the  world,  discouraged, 
hopeless  tending  to  melancholia  and  imbued  with 
the  "sorrow  of  the  world."  In  the  ministry  it 
might  perhaps  be  negatively  described  as  an  ag- 
gravated lack  of  the  peace  of  God.  Kestlessness, 
loss  of  heart,  perf unctoriness,  hollowness  of  service 
and  revulsion  from  low  ideals  or  levels  of  life  and 
work  are  symptoms  of  it.  The  word  had  a  mediaeval 
application  to  monks  who  found  they  had  no  heart 
for  their  cloistered  life.  There  seems  to  be  in  it 
something  of  a  very  antithesis  to  the  peace  of  God. 
And  if  its  symptoms  are  detected  early  and  its  sig- 
nificance understood  in  its  first  stages,  prayer 
against  it  and  patient  dealing  with  it  as  with  any 
other  temptation  or  sin  will  be  efficacious.  That  is 
one  of  the  advantages  of  being  able  to  recognize 
and  correct  tendencies  of  character  here,  and  in  such 
determining  matters  of  the  ministry  to  remember 
remedies  in  the  days  of  the  youth  while  the  evil  days 
of  later  experiences  come  out.  And  the  secret  of 
priestly  serenity  lies  in  the  progressive  meaning  we 
can  put  into  that  primary  plea  of  our  nature  spoken 
or  sacramental :  "  0  Lamb  of  God,  who  takest 
away  the  sin  of  the  world.  Grant  us  Thy  peace." 
Many  a  roving  ministry,  many  a  rebellious  mood 


14:8  APT    AND   MEET 

can  be  saved  and  many  a  type  of  patient  continu- 
ance in  well-doing  be  fixed  by  prompt  and  early  at- 
tention to  this  peace  which  Christ  has  left  to  His 
Ministry. 

The  cloth  that  covers  a  heart  to  which  such  ex- 
periences are  not  strange  will  always  hold  its  own  in 
the  respect  and  regard  of  the  people.  It  will  count 
for  courage  and  hopefulness  as  it  is  able  to  temper 
service  with  peace  and  deepen  peace  with  service. 
Pusey's  poise  in  this  respect  was  a  great  strength  of 
his  character.  Years  ago  I  remember  to  have 
heard  Dr.  Hatch  whose  Bampton  Lectures  showed 
predilections  of  a  sort  which  would  certainly  not 
indicate  bias  towards  either  upon  whom  he  was 
commenting,  speak  strongly  of  Dr.  Pusey's  singular 
hopefulness  of  mind  ever  in  contrast  with  that  of 
his  great  admirer  Liddon.  And  the  blunt  maxim 
of  the  old  English  Bishop,  "  Serve  God  and  be 
cheerful,"  partakes  of  the  same  spirit.  And  so  may 
you  become,  and  so  may  all  within  these  walls  help 
you  to  become,  "  Sanctified  and  meet  for  the  Master's 
use  and  prepared  unto  every  good  work,"  each  one 

'^  Steadfast  set  to  do  his  part, 
Yet  fearing  most  his  own  vain  hearf 


XIX 
PEAYEE  FOE  VOCATION 

We  shall  not  "  grope  as  if  we  had  no  eyes  "  in 
wonderment  about  a  due  supply  for  the  ministry,  if 
we  try  to  see  the  problem  as  Christ  saw  it.  And 
He  has  plainly  given  us  access  to  His  view-point. 
He  has  let  us  into  the  working  of  His  own  mind. 
To  Him,  we  may  reverently  infer,  the  difficulty  was 
not  with  the  field.  Probably  in  point  of  fact  con- 
ditions since  have  never  been  as  unpromising  as 
when  He  came  to  His  own  and  His  own  received 
Him  not.  His  own  tears  over  Jerusalem  because  it 
would  not  know  the  things  that  belong  to  its  peace 
must  have  come  from  a  far  more  poignant  sense  of 
a  showing  of  obstacles  thdn  any  minister  of  His 
since  has  ever  been  called  upon  to  encounter.  And 
yet  to  Him,  with  all  that,  the  harvest  truly  was 
plenteous  and  the  fields  were  white  unto  the  harvest. 
It  was  no  dismaying  outlook  on  the  century  nor  de- 
terrent local  considerations  that  He  stressed  as  the 
trouble.  There  was  really  no  cause  for  concern 
about  the  harvest. 

And  further  the  supply  of  laborers  for  the  harvest 
149 


150  APT   AND   MEET 

as  He  puts  the  matter  to  us  was  a  matter  not  pri- 
marily dependent  upon  some  things  we  are  apt  to 
think  of  first.  We  must  think  of  such  things  as 
making  due  support  for  the  ministry,  in  its  thorough 
preparation,  in  its  active  work  and  in  its  old  age. 
We  must  have  due  regard  for  parental  and  pastoral 
shaping  and  influence.  We  must  keep  the  ideals  on 
a  chivalric  rather  than  a  sordid  plane.  We  must 
exploit  right  manhood  in  the  ministry  and  turn 
Sydney  Smith's  witticism  about  mankind  consisting 
of  three  classes,  to  wit :  "  men,  women  and  clergy- 
men," into  an  axiom  that  clergymen  are  only  called 
to  be  men  apart  that  they  may  be  the  more  truly 
"all  things  to  all  men."  Wrong  sentiment  about 
any  of  these  things  does  undoubtedly  cause  hin- 
drance and  needs  attention  and  correction,  but  that 
is  not  the  remedial  and  reinforcing  measure  that 
Christ  makes  of  primary  importance.  The  specific 
He  does  urge  and  urge  with  a  significance  that  can- 
not fail  to  come  home  to  every  one  anxious  to  see  a 
wider  stir  of  interest  in  the  Students'  Eecruit  Move- 
ment, and  other  like  agencies  for  putting  more  of 
our  young  men  and  young  women  into  the  direct 
work  of  the  Master's  Harvest-field,  is  just  good  old- 
fashioned  prayer,  "  Pray  ye,  therefore  the  Lord  of 
the  harvest,  that  He  would  send  forth  laborers  into 
His  harvest." 


PRAYER  FOR  VOCATION  151 

Every  one  who  intelligently  prays  in  the  Lord's 
Prayer  "  Thy  Kingdom  come,"  does  pray  for  labor- 
ers in  that  kingdom.  And  we  like  to  believe  that 
there  is  a  widening  area  of  special  intercession  for 
this  very  thing  in  the  private  prayers  of  Christians. 
If  the  "Students'  Kecruit  Movement"  had  done 
nothing  more  than  help  this  on,  as  it  no  doubt  has, 
silently,  by  leading  many  to  include  it  among  their 
petitions,  who  had  not  thought  of  it  before,  it  has 
covered  a  great  need.  And  could  there  be  anything 
more  hopeful  than  a  propaganda  putting  it  into  the 
hearts  of  parents,  pastors,  god-parents,  Sunday- 
school  workers,  teachers,  and  all  Christian  workers 
to  habitually  carry  the  earnest  plea  to  the  Lord  of 
the  harvest  to  send  laborers  into  the  harvest.  Famil- 
iar but  never  outworn  is  the  tribute  to  the  mother 
of  one  of  the  greatest  Church  leaders  of  thought 
that  ever  lived — "If  Monica  had  not  prayed, 
Augustine  would  not  have  preached."  Boys  and 
girls,  university  students,  could,  too,  themselves  find 
the  clearer  whisperings  of  the  high  vocation  around 
their  own  hearts  oftentimes  if  they  were  praying 
such  things  for  the  kingdom.  For  we  remember 
that  there  never  was  a  wider  call  for  consecrated 
womanhood  too  to  give  itself  wholly  to  the  Master's 
service  and  find  that  deep  joy  of  ministry.  And 
once  let  such  dynamic  of  private  prayer  develop  in 


168  APT  AND   MEET 

any  broadcast  way,  and  our  universities  might  send 
out  ten  recruits  where  they  now  send  out  one.  And 
while  in  the  Sisterhood  or  Deaconess  work  of  our 
Church,  for  instance,  neither  of  our  two  great 
California  universities  have  from  all  their  young 
lady  graduates,  so  far  as  I  know,  numbered  as  yet 
one,  I  believe  the  record  would  soon  undergo  a 
change  in  that  as  in  other  ways.  But  upon  united 
prayer  concentrated  upon  the  supply  of  laborers 
would  come  a  double  blessing.  In  it  there  is  a 
genuine  note  of  Christian  unity.  This  is  one  very 
practicable  matter  in  which  the  purpose  of  the 
Students'  Eecruit  Movement  to  "  speed  the  day  " 
for  Christian  Unity  can  jBnd  expression.  If  all 
Christian  bodies  could  at  stated  times  use  public 
prayer  to  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  to  supply  labor- 
ers, such  common  prayer  would  be  a  common  note 
of  our  common  Christianity.  Among  many  things 
in  which  there  is  diversity  there  could  be  this 
blessed  unity  of  prayer.  And  just  as  there  is  the 
recognized  advantage  of  having  a  fixed  day  in  the 
week  for  worship  so  there  would  be  in  having,  if 
practicable,  all  agree  upon  fixed  times  in  the  year 
for  fervent  intercession  for  the  ministry.  Now  why 
could  we  not  turn  to  excellent  twentieth  century 
use  just  those  four  periods  of  every  year  which  for 
centuries  have  been  associated  with  such  prayer. 


PRAYEE  FOR   VOCATION  153 

known  as  the  Ember  Days.  They  have  a  flavor  of 
antiquity  and  are  historic  with  hallowed  associa- 
tions, but  it  is  not  so  much  that  as  the  availability  of 
the  seasons  to  fix  stated  times  for  all  Christian 
people  of  our  time  to  unite  in  prayer  for  the  min- 
istry that  we  are  commending.  They  roughly 
correspond  with  the  four  seasons,  spring,  summer, 
autumn  and  winter.  The  especial  days  are  the 
Wednesday,  Friday  and  Saturday  after  the  first 
Sunday  in  Lent,  after  Whitsunday,  after  the  14th 
of  September  and  after  the  13th  of  December. 
When  in  the  last  revision  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  completed  as  recently  as  1892,  the  petition 
was  added,  "  That  it  may  please  Thee  to  send  forth 
laborers  into  Thy  harvest ;  we  beseech  Thee  to  hear 
us,  good  Lord,"  it  was  followed  by  a  noticeable  in- 
crease of  candidates  for  the  ministry  which  could 
not  but  be  significant  to  a  believer  in  united  prayer. 
And  could  all  our  Christian  bodies  agree  to  mark 
those  weeks  four  times  a  year  with  an  outpouring 
of  earnest  pleas,  each  in  their  own  language,  for 
laborers  in  the  wide  harvest-field  of  the  unifying 
world,  everywhere  so  rapidly  opening  itself  to  the 
workers,  they  would  be  acting  on  Christ's  charge, 
they  would  be  resorting  to  Christ's  method  of  re- 
plenishment of  the  ministry. 

A  prayer  is  appended  by  way  of  suggestion : 


154  APT  AND  MEET 

A  Prayer  for  Wider  Vocation  to  the 
Ministry 

O  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Head  of  the  Church, 
Thou  that  knowest  the  hearts  of  all  men,  show 
through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  beseech 
Thee,  all  whom  Thou  dost  call  to  Thy  Sacred  Min- 
istry a  true  sense  of  their  vocation.  Quicken  many 
of  our  youth  with  that  inward  motion  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  take  upon  them  holy  offices  and  ministra- 
tions to  serve  Thee  for  the  promoting  of  Thy  glory 
and  the  edifying  of  Thy  people.  Impart  to  clergy 
and  parents  and  sponsors  and  teachers  a  deeper 
realization  of  our  responsibility  for  the  fewness  of 
the  laborers  while  the  harvest  is  so  plenteous. 
Send  forth  laborers  into  Thy  harvest.  Increase 
in  Thy  Church  a  faithful  ministry  watching  for 
the  souls  Thou  hast  redeemed  with  Thy  precious 
blood,  as  they  that  must  give  account,  that  they 
may  do  it  with  joy  and  not  with  grief.  All  this 
we  ask  of  Thee,  O  blessed  Jesus,  who  art  with 
the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  one  God,  world 
without  end.    Amen. 


zx 

MATEICULATION  ADDEESS 

To  matriculate  is  to  make  formal  the  tacit 
understanding  with  which  one  enters  into  an  in- 
stitution of  learning.  It  is  a  simple  ceremony,  with 
the  best  traditions  of  ancient  and  modern  seats  of 
scholarship.  It  may  help  much,  or  little,  as  its 
significance  is  or  is  not  appreciated  by  those  who 
use  it.  It  may  belong  to  the  mere  "  deadwood " 
of  an  institution,  withered  and  dried  out  of  all 
recognition  as  part  of  the  institution's  life.  Or  it 
may  bring  forth  much  fruit.  Naturally,  in  a  new 
institution,  which  scrutinizes  while  it  values  tradi- 
tions, the  question  arises,  is  there  any  real  use  which 
a  form  of  matriculation  serves  in  our  Divinity 
Schools  ?  Though  observed  by  most  of  our  leading 
seminaries  of  theology,  that  is  hardly  reason  enough 
for  our  adopting  it  unless  it  has  proved  to  be  of 
notable  and  enduring  value  to  them.  Feebly  as  we 
may  be  able  to  copy  their  excellences,  we  should 
certainly  be  wary  at  least  not  to  copy  their 
surplusage  of  machinery  if  such  there  be.  We 
waited  here  to  get  light  on  that  very  question, 

155 


156  APT  AND   MEET 

waited  for  some  development  and  definition  of 
what  our  institutional  life  was  to  be,  and  hold 
this  matriculation  because  we  are  convinced  that  it 
may  be  made  instinct  with  meaning  in  its  bearing 
upon  all  that  constitutes  the  Divinity  School  a 
mater — as  the  word  matriculation  implies — and  in 
that  term,  which  grows  fonder  with  the  after  years, 
an  alma  mater. 

The  three  afl&rmations  of  our  form  of  matric- 
ulation simply  point  and  emphasize  phases  of 
Divinity  School  life,  which  call  for  special  concern 
in  that  growth  in  character,  which  no  canonical 
schedule  of  topics  can  list,  and  no  canonical  examina- 
tion can  bring  to  account.  And  unless  a  Divinity 
School  is  directly  and  effectually  concerning  itself 
with  that  growth  in  character  it  is  missing  a  main 
point  of  its  existence.  The  candidate  that  goes  up 
to  his  ordination  must  be  "  apt  and  meet "  for  his 
"  godly  conversation  "  as  well  as  for  his  "  learning," 
and  woe  betide  the  candidate,  or  the  candidate's 
Divinity  School,  that  relegates  this  to  even  a 
secondary  place ! 

Furthermore,  we  should  not  allow  ourselves  to 
forget  here,  that  in  these  earlier  formative  years  of 
our  school  life — as  it  is  in  these  formative  years  for 
the  ministry  of  each  one  of  you — much,  very  much 
depends  upon  the  standard  we  set  for  ourselves. 


MATRICULATION   ADDRESS  157 

The  molten  life  running  freely  and  glowingly  as  it 
is,  is  running,  we  must  remember,  into  the  fixed 
outlines  of  the  mould. 

The  first  affirmation  you  are  to  make  touches 
spirituality.  This  is  the  critical  time  for  your 
devotional  habits.  You  are  here  because  you  have 
had  one  demonstration  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  has 
inwardly  moved  you  to  seek  the  holy  ministry. 
Other  demonstration  there  should  be,  just  as  positive, 
in  the  sanctification  of  character  through  "the 
heavenly  assistance"  of  the  same  Holy  Spirit. 
Tour  rooms  more  than  your  recitations  are  telling 
the  story  as  to  that,  your  still  communings  with 
your  own  hearts,  your  assimilation  of  the  truth  of 
God  to  your  own  spirits,  your  personal  struggles 
and  victories  over  sin.  Whether  or  not  your  future 
flocks  can  take  knowledge  of  you  that  you  ha/oe 
leen  with  Jesus  here  as  well  as  with  your  text-books 
depends  upon  the  conscience  you  put  into  keeping 
to  some  rule  of  devotional  life  for  yourselves  in  all 
that  curriculum  of  the  spirit  into  which  the  course 
of  the  Divinity  School  can  only  enter  with  general 
suggestions  like  this. 

The  second  affirmation  bears  upon  the  fraternal 
spirit  to  one  another.  Many  wretched  bickerings 
and  alienations  would  be  avoided  in  the  minis- 
try if  candidates  in  our  Divinity  Schools  trained 


168  APT   AND   MEET 

themselves  more  thoroughly  and  intelligently  in 
what  Mozly,  in  one  of  his  striking  sermons,  deals 
with  as  a  duty  to  our  equals.  There  must  be,  of 
course,  natural  groupings  on  lines  of  friendship  and 
taste,  but  what,  as  candidates  for  the  ministry  of 
Christ,  you  need  to  be  especially  solicitous  about  is 
to  cultivate  the  Christlike  bearing  to  those  to 
whom  you  are  not  drawn  by  natural  affinity,  per- 
sonally or  theologically.  The  other  is  but  the 
mark  of  the  natural  mind ;  this  is  the  mark  of  the 
spiritual  mind.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing,  and  I  do 
not  speak  of  it  here  because  I  think  our  standard  is 
lower  than  elsewhere  in  this  respect,  but  because  I 
believe  general  elevation  of  standard  is  needed  in 
this  very  matter,  and  if  you  school  yourselves  in  it 
here  it  will  save  you  many  a  littleness  out  in  the 
ministry  where  odium  theologicum  has  passed  into 
a  proverb  of  the  scoffer. 

Then,  in  the  third  place,  you  promise  to  be  loyal 
to  your  Divinity  School.  It  is  good  to  have  an 
ideal  of  loyalty  to  it  as  you  would  have  to  your 
home  ;  not  to  gossip  about  its  home  affairs,  but  to 
remember  that  while  there  is  nothing  to  conceal, 
there  is  much  that  belongs  to  the  amour  projpre  of 
the  family  circle  and  should  not  be  thoughtlessly 
or  frivolously  introduced  into  general  conversation. 
Episodes  of  the  lecture-rooms,  personal  comment, 


MATRICULATION  ADDRESS  159 

were  better  kept  to  the  student  body  itself,  as  a 
general  custom,  and  it  can  readily  become  the  tra- 
dition if  there  be  care  and  caution. 

And  as  our  prescript  rules  are  to  be  made  as 
few  as  possible,  there  is  the  greater  need  of  that 
spirit  of  loyalty  which  can  be  depended  upon  to  do 
the  right  thing  between  the  rules,  to  have  the  mind 
and  will  to  save  rules  hy  being  self-regulated. 
There  is  an  almost  absurd  anomaly  in  a  candidate 
for  Orders  being  disorderly  in  any  way. 

And  before  I  conclude  I  cannot  but  forecast  a 
little,  to  bespeak  from  you  that  loyalty  which  this 
matriculation  contemplates,  when  you  have  passed 
from  this  institution  out  into  your  active  ministry. 
There  should  be  the  loyalty  of  your  prayers,  and  if 
possible,  of  your  gifts ;  the  loyalty  of  your  influence 
to  bring  other  candidates  and  endowments  and  of 
being  alert  to  improve  opportunities  to  upbuild  and 
carry  on  the  work.  There  is  nothing  in  this  to 
stay  your  loving  and  honest  criticisms,  if  loyalty 
ever  seems  to  suggest  that,  nor  to  deprive  the 
School  of  the  shaping  influences  which  may  to  its 
advantage  come  to  it  as  the  years  go  by  from  its 
graduates ;  but  may  we  be  saved  from  that  carping, 
grumbling,  disparaging  treatment  which  so  wounds 
our  institutions  when  it  comes  from  the  house  of 
their  indifferent— far  from  loyal— alumni ! 


160  APT   AND   MEET 

Believing  then  that  you  take  this  step  fully 
awake  to  its  possibilities  for  your  welfare  and  the 
welfare  of  the  Divinity  School  and  with  a  high 
purpose,  to  which  the  appeal  has  not  yet  been  made 
in  vain,  to  partake  of  its  spirit  as  well  as  subscribe 
to  its  letter,  I  proceed  to  the  matriculation  itself : 

FoEM  OF  Mateiculation 

The  Dean :  The  Church  expects  all  her  candi- 
dates for  Holy  Orders  to  so  apply  and  prepare 
themselves  that  they  may  be  found  apt  and  meet 
for  their  learning  and  Godly  conversation  to  exer- 
cise their  ministry  duly  to  the  honor  of  God  and 
the  edifying  of  His  Church.  Will  you  faithfully 
use  this  Church  Divinity  School  of  the  Pacific  to 
that  end,  giving  yourself  wholly  to  the  work  therein 
set  before  you  and  daily  endeavoring  by  some  rule 
of  a  devotional  life  to  cultivate  those  fruits  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  by  which  the  true  minister  of  Christ  is 
best  known  ? 

Answer  :     I  will. 

The  Deem  :  Will  you  carefully  foster  a  spirit  of 
loving  kindness  to  all  that  are  associated  with  you 
here,  endeavoring,  so  far  as  in  you  lieth,  to  realize 
that  ye  are  brethren  called  to  be  fellow-workers  in 
the  Lord  ? 

Answer :     I  will. 


MATRICULATION   ADDRESS  161 

The  Dean  :  Will  you  obey  the  rules  and  guard 
the  interests  of  this  Church  Divinity  School,  here 
and  elsewhere,  having  due  regard  for  its  discipline 
and  in  all  things  striving  loyally  to  further  its 
aims? 

Answer :     I  will. 

The  Dean^  taking  each  one  hy  the  right  ham^d :  I 
do  hereby  receive  you  as  a  fully  matriculated  mem- 
ber of  the  Church  Divinity  School  of  the  Pacific. 
In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.    Amen. 


^v\y^^ 


YB   12959 


182278 


